


Comic Book: A Pokemon Yellow Gijinkalocke

by Vlden



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: Gen, Gijinka, Nuzlocke Challenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2019-10-02 06:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17258909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vlden/pseuds/Vlden
Summary: Sydney Samuels is a tired college student; after a freak accident grants her superpowers, she is a tired college student with a new responsibility: keeping other idiot superheroes and the sinister Rocket Gang from screwing up her Kanto City. The only thing Sydney wants? Sleep.





	1. Issue #0: Origin Story

I think that everyone has almost died at least once. It’s the little things, you know? Running a red light, or not looking both ways when you cross the streets--usually has to do with roads, now that I think about it(because really, were people meant to create giant metal boxes to hurtle down long stretches of asphalt at unimaginable speeds?)--or staying underwater too long, or just leaving the house a few minutes earlier or later than usual...well, look, you get the picture. People and death go hand in hand. We’re like, the real romance story of the century. Can’t keep our hands off each other, the real gross P.D.A that drives even the stiffest straight-man act up the wall...er, anyway.

I’m the only person I know who’s died twice.

The first time was pretty standard; I drowned at my best friend’s summer birthday pool party when I was six years old. The paramedics revived me, but my talking point at parties is that I still technically died. 

Surprisingly, there’s no tunnel. No light. It’s just...

“Syd?” 

“Sydney? Holy shit, I think we killed her!” 

...But let’s rewind. The second time is more interesting.

 

Doctor Samuel Oak’s eyes twinkle as he laughs at me, “Samuels, you say? Funny, my name is Samuel, Miss Samuels. Perhaps it was fate that brought us to this meeting, today!” 

I try not to sit on my legs and ruin the modicum of professionalism I’ve mustered for this meeting, so I lean forward in my chair instead and tap my pen to the edge of my notebook, “Not to be rude sir, but is it common for scientists to believe in fate?” 

Dr. Oak’s smile grows broader, “Gary has always said you could be a comic, you know, Miss Samuels. I can see why. You’ve got a great deadpan.” 

“Thanks,” The corner of my mouth pulls into a smile despite my best efforts to remain stoic, “But we’re getting a little sidetracked.” 

Samuel Oak is the head of Silph Corporation’s Research and Development team, and I’m supposed to be interviewing him on his latest developments in clean energy for Kanto City’s Viridian District, where my urban campus, Pallet City University, is located. He’s also my best friend’s grandfather. I’ve never met him before now, but the old fart’s been dancing around my questions and chatting me up like we’re old friends instead of a tired journalism student and busy researcher who both would rather be doing something else.

“So we are!” He leans back in his desk chair--it’s one of those nice, modern, ergonomic types--and taps his fingers together, “I’m afraid that there’s very little insider information I could give you, Miss Samuels. We’re going live this weekend, after all, and the…” 

“...the actual news outlets have priority over PCU, I get it.” I sigh and run my hands along the edge of my notepad, “It’s just...is there really nothing you can give me, sir? I hate to waste your time,” What I don’t say is ‘and you’re really wasting mine’, “but I’m not just doing this because it’s fun. I’ve kind of got a grade on the line, here, and--” 

I also didn’t want to say ‘Gary said you’d help me’, but I think the old man reads minds because he nods and says: 

“And Gary indicated to you that I would likely be able to help you do your last-minute project.” He glances at his computer screen and hums, the sound not quite meant for me to hear, but loud enough that I get the sense he wants me out of his hair so he can go back to doing his important work. I glance around his office while he’s distracted by whatever popped up. 

It’s a big space, with broad glass panels that make up the back to view the Silph Campus. It’s settled beautifully in the center of the Saffron District of Kanto City, and it looks almost like a park intermingling with the modern buildings of the massive corporation. I’d had to take a shuttle just to get to the heart of the campus where Oak’s research and development lab is. There’s not much decoration, but his desk is littered with awards being used as paperweights, and a large photograph of my best friend, Gary Oak, and his older sister, Daisy, sits in a visible spot of his bookshelf. Gary looks a lot like his grandfather. They have the same mischievous smile. 

 

As I bring my eyes back to Dr. Oak, that same smile is plastered over his face. 

“I think I’ve got a compromise for us!” 

“Oh?” I raise my eyebrows at him. 

“How would you like a demonstration of the clean energy project? I need to run a test before it gets too late, and you’ll get to see the project in action for your...little homework assignment.” 

I try not to jump out of my seat, but I nod in what I hope is a suitably enthusiastic gesture, “Well, hell--er, yeah, yes sir, I’d love the opportunity.” Especially if it means getting out of the stuffy ‘dress clothes’ I’d slapped on for my interview. 

We walk down the halls and through some double doors for what feels like an eternal awkward silence before we reach the entrance to the lab. There are a number of instruments and panels and people I don’t understand and don’t care to understand filling up the main room. 

“So, for your notes, Miss Samuels,” Dr. Oak motions to the panel of plexiglass that blocks a nearly empty room (empty except for two miniature turbines that are doing God only knows what), “How familiar are you with wind-generated energy?” 

“I get the basic idea, I guess,” I say and scribble out a few nonsensical asides in my book--the kind of random one-liners that will jog my memory alone when it comes time to write my article at three in the morning. I include a hasty scribble of the turbines because it feels right. Making sense of it is a problem for future me. 

He nods, “Good, good. What we’re doing is taking the basic idea of the kinetic energy in wind and…” He launches into a discussion on harvesting the energy and doing all manner of scientific words and methods with it before he gets to a punchline that my ‘failed high school physics’ brain can process: “the baseline is that we’ll be relying on clean energy, like wind, any means of kinetic energy whatsoever, so we can, for example--do you have your cell phone on you?” 

I nod, slide it out of my pocket and offer it to him. 

The team of researchers set up the demonstration quickly--they plug my phone into a little generator that’s hooked up to a…

A mouse on a wheel. 

Oak adds in reply to my arched eyebrow, “I did say the generator will be capable of converting any form of kinetic energy, so… even movements from something as small as a mouse will be able to power the new generator!” 

The demonstration is fairly smooth; the battery somehow generates electricity enough to bring my shitty phone from fifty percent battery to one hundred percent battery in just a few minutes of the little yellow mouse sprinting along its wheel. 

There’s surprisingly little space in my brain to find awe and inspiration in the power of science, even though it very much is an appropriate moment to be amazed. I mean, in theory, people are going to be able to generate energy just from simple motion, which is...cool. To put it lightly. I should be hopping up and down with the earth-shattering revelation that the entire world of electric energy is about to change as we know it, and all I can muster up is a faint smile. 

But as it stands, I’ve pulled three all-nighters this week, and I’m planning on making it a fourth tonight. It’s hard to feel even the faint smile as Dr. Oak hands me my newly charged phone. I set my notepad down and take the phone instead. 

“Thanks. That was pretty cool.” It sounds a little flat; Dr. Oak doesn’t seem to notice. He smiles at me and chatters on about the breakthrough and a few more mechanical details that yet again fly over my head before they reward the running mouse with food and shut the test drive down. 

“It’s fairly far along; I mean, of course, it is, considering we’re ready to reveal it to the public, but it’s excellent to see that it can work on mundane levels as well. It’s the little things.” Oak rambles. 

I nod and say, “Yeah, makes sense. I appreciate your time, doctor. Can uh, someone escort me out? I don’t think you guys would appreciate someone like me getting lost in here.” 

We exchange fake ‘it was so nice to meet yous’ and the good doctor has one of his researchers walk me back to the R&D lobby. There’s no sense of relief as I head on the shuttle back to the bus stop that will take me back to my apartment, but I wasn’t expecting one, anyway. I still have to write an article for class by nine tomorrow morning…boy, oh boy, what a pleasure being a college student is.

The commute back to my apartment in the Viridian District is a whirlwind of bus stops and color: Kanto City has been my home since I could remember being alive. While my childhood best friend grew up in the quiet suburbs, I had always been part of the city: my family was from the Vermilion District originally, with the dock shining over the horizon every morning like a mirror to the sky, flat and silver-blue compared to the multicolored brick and cement mountain range that sat adjacent to it. I’d grown up shopping in the vibrant and spectacular Celadon District, I’d been to the zoo in the Fuchsia District on too many school trips to count, hoping to catch glimpses of the fabled sea serpent in the murky water exhibits, I’d been to the lonely Lavender Tower when my grandpa had died. I could navigate the Mount Moon and Rocky Tunnel Stations in the dark. 

Not that I would. Especially not with all the trouble going on these days. The tiniest shred of the thought of the crime spike in Kanto has me hugging my bag a little closer to my stomach as I lean into the window seat of the bus. Things have been strange, lately, although it’s hard to put my finger on why. Instead of wasting my few remaining brain cells on worrying about crime and real-world problems, I put my headphones on and zone out to the brick, steel, and cement cityscape blur outside. 

==

“So you met Gramps, huh?” Gary Oak whisks his ramen over the stove while I measure out my traditional pot of coffee for my all-nighter. He’s a real wiry guy and having seen the famous Doctor Samuel Oak, I can see now that the two of them are hilariously alike in their builds, only Gary is young and fit, and Oak is old and getting pudgy. His hair’s a mess, too. Same as the good doc’s. It’s even funnier that Gary is pursuing a degree in the sciences as well--although his is in biochemical engineering--and I wonder if the Oak family teases Gary for taking so much after the man who ostensibly raised him and his sister. I’ve grown up knowing their grandmother pretty well, but the picture just feels complete now that I’ve seen Doctor Samuel Oak in action at last. 

“So I did,” I say, dumping a few more scoops of grounds than the instructions call for--I need this coffee to be stronger than a bull on steroids--”Now your dumb ass is making a lot more sense to me.” 

“Hey, watch it. You owe me, you know.” He gives me that lopsided grin that he and his grandfather share while he takes the ramen off the hot eye of the stove. “You’d be toast on this interview project without me.” 

I’m too tired to lie, “Don’t have to tell me twice. Shame I don’t understand half of what he was talking about. This article’s going to be a lot of having to talk around jargon. Teach’s gonna be hella mad that I’m being so shallow.” 

“You always say that before you drop publishable work.” Gary rolls his eyes. “This article barely scratches the surface--let me just go blow the corrupt politics of the student council wide-open for the entire campus to see.”

Rolling my eyes, I say, “Oh, whatever. I just have a few lucky breaks, that’s all. This time is where my luck runs out.” 

There are defined perks and defined drawbacks to living with your two childhood best friends: the defined perks being they know you inside and out. The downsides being...they know you inside and out. 

“The day your luck runs out is the day the world ends, Syd. You’re like, the luckiest person on the planet. If you’d just let me take you to the casino in Celadon, we’d be rich, I tell you!” 

I roll my eyes harder, with a lot more drama, specifically to be seen and nearly heard, “Gary, please. With my luck, we’d get kicked out for being suspected cheaters.” 

He laughs at that and goes back to prettifying his ramen. I go to the kitchen table in the meantime, where my laptop is sitting open with the blank Word document waiting for me to grace it with my inevitable verbal vomit.

“You know,” Gary says, “If you got started now, you might actually finish the article in time to get a few hours sleep for once.” 

“Why do that?” I arch an eyebrow, “When I can start at three in the morning instead? I need at least two cups of coffee before the words are going to remotely start coming to me, anyway.” 

He frowns, “Come on, Syd. You know how bad staying up all night like that is for you?” 

“Don’t get started on me. Look, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go ahead and look through my notes.” 

I open my backpack. 

My notebook isn’t there. 

“What the Hell?” I open the backpack up wider as if letting in a little more of the dim kitchen light will make the missing book appear, and find nothing, still. 

“What’s up?”

“My notebook. It’s not in here.” 

Panic sets in a low broil in my stomach. 

“Can’t you write your paper without it?” 

“I have my quotes from Dr. Oak in there,” I grimace. “I really, really need that notebook. Is there any way the lab is still open?” 

Gary looks at the clock on the microwave. It’s 9:00 P.M. 

“No way.” 

“Shit.” I put my head in my hands and hear my breath come out shaky, rushed and tired, “If I don’t get this article in, I’m boned, and I can’t turn in shit, Gary. I need this to be like, actually decent! God, how the fuck am I so stupid?!” 

He puts a hand on my shoulder, “Chill, Syd, it’s not the end of the world. Surely you don’t need it that bad? Or you can get some sleep, we’ll go to the lab first thing in the morning, and you just do one of your thirty-minute miracle papers.” 

“I need more time than that. This is my final!” 

His face says “This is what you get for doing it last minute, as always, Syd.” but his mouth says, “Well, something is better than nothing.” 

“You guys go to the lab all the time. Couldn’t you help me sneak in, or something?” 

“Like Hell!” Gary scoffs. 

“Gary, please? I won’t touch anything. I know exactly where I sat it, too--it’s on a desk in the main lab area. Right by the mouse cage.” 

He shakes his head, “No way. We’ll get totally busted.” 

“But if you and Daisy are frequent flyers there, won’t it just be like, that y’all are going to do some work or something for class? I know Daisy’s interning there right now, so…” 

“No way, Syd!” Gary folds his arms, “We’re not breaking into Gramps’s lab!” 

I’m all but on my knees as I say, “Don’t make me cash in the Favor, Gary.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

“Oh, but I would,” I say, “I’m desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And I’m desperate enough that I’ll tell Daisy aaaalll about--” 

“Okay, okay!” Gary growls, “But even though you’re cashing in a favor, you owe me big time for this. And Daisy, too, because we’re going to need her access key.” 

Daisy, of course, has no qualms about helping. She is the fun sibling. She’s waiting for us outside in under an hour after Gary calls and explains the situation

She’s willowy and neatly kempt, unlike Gary, with long honey-brown hair and perfectly pressed clothes, even at this hour of the night. But she shares the traditional Oak smile, and she’s giving me a particularly wicked version of it as we load into her little car. 

“Left your notebook somewhere again?” The devilish twinkle in her eyes makes me sigh, resigned to the indefinite period of mockery that will follow me for the rest of my life. They already tease me enough for drowning at Daisy’s birthday party. 

“At least it’s not a museum where I don’t have a contact who can get me in past security this time,” I say, hoping my tone is light enough that Daisy can’t hear the undercurrent of stress. 

She’s grinning all the while as she drives us the twenty-minute slog of the way to the Saffron District. The guard at the Silph Co. parking lot entrance doesn’t blink as Daisy hands him her badge and soon enough, we’re traipsing through the grounds to the Research and Development lab like we belong on the dimly lit corporate campus. My racing heart slows just enough that I can breathe again. It’s going to be just fine. I’m going to get my notebook, write my paper, and everything will be a-okay. 

I don’t say it out loud, because Daisy and Gary will collect anyway, but I owe the Oak siblings my life. 

We walk into the lab and I spot my notebook right where I knew it would be: by the mouse cage. I scoop it up in my arms and sigh in relief. “I am so sorry,” I breathe to it. 

“It’s not a problem, really,” Daisy laughs, “It’s not the first time I’ve snuck into the lab because I’ve forgotten something, really. Gary said that Grampa showed you the project today?” 

I look at the mouse in the cage, who is actively spinning on his little wheel--does he think that he’ll get a reward for it because there are people talking in the room? I don’t know much about animals, really--and say, “Yeah, they charged my phone for me.” 

“Oh, is that all?” Daisy laughs, “You won’t believe what it can really do...wait, I’ll show you!” 

“You don’t have to do that,” I say, “You’ll get in trouble. I’ve got my notebook, so let’s go.” 

Gary frowns, “You’re allowed to mess with the project?” 

Daisy beams at us both, “Yep! So you guys should let me give you a little demonstration!” 

She hooks the mouse wheel back up to the generator that Oak had used for me earlier in the day and motions me closer. She says, “This thing can power the entire building! Watch that light on the generator.” Daisy points to where my eyes need to stay and then backs away. 

There’s a loud whirring sound that overtakes the steady squeak of the mouse’s wheel as Daisy hits a button on a control panel in the lab. 

And because my life is perfect, the whirring starts to sound suspiciously violent, and too close, and there’s a singeing smell of ozone that hits my nose a second before heat rushes through my skin and tingles its way all through my body. I can practically feel my atoms come undone before unconsciousness hits me.

“Syd?” 

“Sydney? Holy shit, I think we killed her!” 

No shit, Daisy. No fucking shit. 

I wish I could say something to her right now, but my body is riding an electric current of nothingness and everythingness at the same time--no light at the end of a tunnel, no loved ones waiting for me, just the faintest awareness of my own passing, a sort of easy blip into oblivion. 

At least I wasn’t going to have to write that paper, now.


	2. Bonus Issue: Mythic Is Dead

I hit the wall and bounce off of it with force that would break a normal man’s bones. I’m a little luckier; mine only creak in discomfort from the force of the blow. There’s a sound that’s not quite my voice that creaks with them; it makes Moretti laugh.

“What’s wrong, Mythic? Not used to a challenge, anymore?”

My vision is crossed three different ways and I have to shake my head before I can look him in the eye as I stand, “Not used to you being able to move rock and metal with anything but money, Moretti. What happened to you?”

He laughs again, a full belly laugh that’s rich in his groomed, wealthy voice, “I let you catch me monologuing once Mythic. Once was enough.”

I hate when villains get smarter. I have enough time to breathe once before he chucks another piece of cement at my head. This time, I catch it with my telekinesis and throw it back with twice the force. He’s barely able to stop it. His foot slides behind him, gracelessly bringing him almost into a split. I wish he would rip his perfectly tailored suit. It would make my day.

But he’s clumsy. Unsure of himself. New to this whole superpowers thing.

How in the Hell did Moretti get fucking superpowers?

I don’t have time to ponder on the spot; Moretti is on the offensive again. The building quakes under my feet and I have to levitate myself or fall flat on my ass. Even though it looks cool to propel through the air with telekinesis, the mechanics of it usually result in a headache.

Superpowers in general result in a headache.

Moretti is a migraine, though, as far as headaches go, and I can’t let him follow through with his plans. Kanto City is my home. And despite what the cops think, it’s really under my jurisdiction when it comes to the megalomaniac supervillains trying to do stupid supervillain shit. I’ve seen it all: doomsday devices, taking over the city and then the world, stealing countless MacGuffins, summoning fucking demons, for Christ’s sake!  
What makes Moretti so scary is that I don’t know what he’s planning. I just know that it’s nothing good. A pain in my ass suddenly developing significant powers spells trouble, in all caps and with bold and italics.  
Moretti scowls at my levitating and chucks cement at me again. This time, I blast through the cement with a burst of telekinetic force, pressure in my brain threatening to make tonight a rough one when this is all said and done. Moretti tumbles under the shockwave and debris, rolling into his desk. I look out over the rock quarry. I’ll hang him by his underwear from a crane. The cops should be en route soon; they’re usually not far behind my explosions. It’ll be a nice present for them to roll in on two wheels and find their suited villain trussed up and pretty for his pictures.

Lifting with telekinesis takes a lot more force and energy than the media thinks. They all like to play me up as a superstar who never gets tired, who never runs out of steam, but the truth of the matter is I push myself to the limit every time I go out into the field. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, in my seven years of being Kanto City’s Mythic, but after throwing around giant rocks and chunks of cement around the quarry, even lifting up something as light—ha, imagine thinking that, something as light—as a grown man puts a strain on me. Still, I pick Moretti up and shatter the window with his body as I send him flying out of it. I follow and hear him cursing me all the while.

I don’t realize I’ve let him into his element until he nails me square in the head with a large rock. I fall. He falls. I land in a puddle of dust and debris, grabbing at my face to make sure the mask is still in place—the last thing I need is to lose my mask again—and I sit up quickly, despite the world swaying and telling me to sit the fuck back down before this concussion gets any worse.  
Moretti dusts himself off, suit only ripped on one sleeve. He slams me with another rock from the quarry and I stop it with my powers. It’s inches from crushing me. I throw it back at Moretti and he shatters it with a clenched fist and throws the debris back at me, cutting into my skin even through the tear-resistant clothes that have become the signature Mythic wear.

“A stereotypical villain would ask you to join him at this venture.” Moretti says.

“A stereotypical hero would tell you she would never,” I reply.

“I would never ask such a nuisance to join me, though. How could I ever trust someone who would defenestrate me?”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Defenestrate? Who is this guy? I focus a beam of force and power and laugh, “I can’t believe you would use the word defenestrate in a sentence. Good last word of the day, though.”

I let loose and the beam of energy carves a trench into the ground. The world around us goes white, and I stumble back as exhaustion settles in my bones. I don’t throw around power like this often, but there’s something telling me I have little choice but to stop Moretti cold or we’ll be fighting until the cows come home.  
He’s still standing when the smoke clears.

“Shit.”

“Quite. It’s time for our games to be over, Mythic. I have plans.”

“Shove off. Who’s just gonna let you get away with whatever it is you’re planning?”

He smiles. “Who’s going to stop me? Mythic is dead.”

I don’t feel the hit until I’m falling.


	3. Issue #1: I Just Want to Be Normal

Resignation feels so good. I feel good. I’ve been so tired. So many all-nighters. The finality of everything is a relaxing moment in a semester straight from Satan’s asscrack, and whether or not my eyes are closed, it’s like settling in to sleep the day after finals.

But in one second, my body is cold, numb and black and white; in the next, my entire world is in three-strip Technicolor and a rush of heat and tingling and Red Bull gives you wiiiings--

“FUCK!” I jolt awake on cold tile floors, clutching my notebook to my chest. 

“OH MY GOD, YOU’RE NOT DEAD!” Daisy and Gary are kneeling over me, and I hope to God neither of them had a mouth anywhere near mine, saving my ass or not because then I’ll really never hear the end of it. 

“Unfortunately.” 

“Don’t joke about this! I seriously thought--I mean, really, even now, that’s what you’re going to do? Almost die and then say it’s ‘unfortunate’ that you didn’t?” Gary sputters, his eyes wildly white and wide, before he continues, “Unbelievable, Syd!” 

“I’m the one who almost died,” I say, “I can decide whether or not it’s fortunate or not that I didn’t.” The groan that comes out of my throat as I stand up is gross, heavy and a little too loud. My hair is standing up almost straight, and there’s a definite singe on my jeans. Great. Never going to be able to explain this one off; would it stand to say I got dropped in an air fryer as a science experiment? Is this what fried chicken feels like? 

Maybe I should consider becoming a vegetarian on behalf of how food feels when it’s cooked...wait, would that just be vegan, then, or--I blink. Where is my mind going? I have a paper to write. I nearly died. I--

“Syd?” Daisy’s hand is on my shoulder, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.” 

“Oh, gee, the person who got fucking electrocuted doesn’t look so good. I wonder why.” 

She winces at that--I can’t help but feel a warm satisfaction in my stomach that she winces--and says, “Look, I’m sorry, that wasn’t supposed to happen! It was just supposed to turn on all the lights. I’ve done it before, too, I just--” 

“I mean, at least now I can say you’re the reason I’ve died twice.” 

“You didn’t die all the way this time!”

I almost say something back, but I just shrug and head to the door. I’ve got stuff to do. This damned article, in particular, being the stuff. To my own surprise (as much as Gary and Daisy looked surprised, too), I’m not clumsy or sluggish as I walk. Huh. 

“You sure you don’t need to, like, go to the hospital?” Daisy and Gary are both at my heels as I stride out into the hall; I shake my head. The last thing I want to have to do is call either of my parents with a surprise emergency room bill.

Gary scowls. “Don’t make this like when you had bronchitis last year. If I have to drag you to the hospital to get medicine again...” 

“Look, I’m fine! Just need to do this stupid article, alright? If I feel weird tomorrow, I’ll go to the doctor.” 

We make it out of the lab and across the campus with nothing more said between us. When I open the door to Daisy’s car, though, a vibrant spark colors the air in a flash of white as my fingers touch the handle. My hair stands on edge again and I yelp despite myself. 

“What happened?” Gary gasps, blinking away the lights all three of us are seeing. 

“Just leftover static, I guess?” I tenderly touch the car door again, open it without fanfare, this time, and slide in, where I take my perch on the middle seat. Daisy and Gary load up, and we head back to our apartment in more of the same awkward silence. Daisy’s fingers grip the steering wheel with a tightness that blatantly spills her guilt. She’ll get over it in a day or so, and everything will go back to normal, except we’ll be able to joke about it. 

Daisy and Gary both go to bed when we get home, a nighttime routine normally filled with laughs and good-natured jibes dead in the water with an uneasy dance around the fact that they could’ve watched me die tonight. 

Drama queens. 

The coffee is still hot in the pot. I fill my Viridian Quarry mug (I’ve had it since a field trip in middle school) to the brim, sit at the kitchen table, and get to work. 

My fingers tremble, hesitating on the keys as I map out the start of the article. Too much caffeine? Surely not; I’ve barely had four cups today, and normally I’m on six or seven before I go to bed. But as my finger brushes the ‘A’ key, sparks fly again. I jump back, falling out of my chair as it tips over backwards. I stick the hand holding my coffee mug straight into the air, and by some miracle I spill only a thin trickle of coffee down the side of the mug as I land on my back, wheezing. 

Okay, Syd. Find your chill. You just had a little too much juice in your system. You’re no scientist, but surely it’s just some leftover static. That’s all. My breath is still shaky as I sit up. 

Neither Gary or Daisy wake up to check on the commotion. To be fair, it’s not the loudest I’ve ever been working on a paper late at night. I take a sip of my coffee and pick the chair up with my free hand, easing myself back down and close to my computer again. It seems alright, no visible damage from the little light show, but I tentatively press my finger down on the ‘A’ key again anyway. Nothing happens. I look at my finger and frown. 

“No more funny business. We’ve got to write this paper,” I whisper to it in earnest and sit my mug down. I carefully crack each knuckle on my hands and stretch my fingers--a perfected procrastination ritual--and then start typing. 

When I write, the world melts away. It’s the glare of white paper and an automatic-colored Arial font chipping away in front of a cursor, where the words hardly parse from my brain to my fingertips as they blast across the clacking keyboard. Science words, science thoughts, my thoughts, dry, boring, to the point, come see the opening ceremony at the Viridian Forest Park this weekend! I only have one cup of coffee while writing this one, to my surprise. 

I finish the paper, lit only by the computer backlight and the moon washing through the window in the kitchen, and glance at the clock over the oven. Only three in the morning? Record time. Stretching, I get up and send the paper to the printer in my room. I follow the grinding sound of my work being born into the physical world and go into my room, picking my way through the mess until I find the bed. I manage to kick off my jeans and worm my way into the sheets and blankets. 

Gary wakes me. I hardly remember falling asleep, or being tired, but he looks wild-eyed. 

“Syd! You forgot to set your alarm, it’s almost nine!” 

“FUCKING--FUCK, OUT OF THE WAY, THANK YOU!” I roll out of bed and scramble for my jeans as Gary folds his arms and shakes his head at me. He’s dressed for his lab practical--close-toed shoes, jeans (these without the wear holes, for once) and a deep blue shirt. I throw on a yellow sweatshirt that’s hanging off the side of my daybed and shove my feet into slip-on Converse, because who has time for laces these days, and snatch my paper from the printer that takes up the majority of my small desk. 

“You’re welcome!” He shouts behind me as I bolt to the bathroom. There’s no salvaging my too-blonde dyed hair beyond throwing it into a very messy bun on top of my head--and God, I really need a touch-up, my roots are so damn dark--and I can feel my gums screaming as I scrub my mouth clean as quickly as I can. I throw my toothbrush in its cup holder and rinse, not sparing a third glance at myself, so I can’t bemoan the dark circles under my eyes or the fact that my eyeliner from yesterday is fadedly smudged a little too wide. 

The one good thing about sharing an apartment with the grandchildren of one of Kanto City’s most beloved scientific figures is that they have resources. Resources to get into a nice complex that’s a stone’s throw from the majority of campus, where I can sprint to my building. It feels only like a matter of seconds that I’m out the door, down the stairs, and all the way to the arts building, where my professor’s office sits on the third floor. 

I blink. I’m not even out of breath. And while I might be one of those skinny bitches, I’m certainly not a healthy skinny bitch. I look back. That’s...not a trail of dust from me, is it? There’s a student giving me a weird look as I climb the stairs to the building and fling open the door. 

I really need a watch. I have no idea what time it is as I bound into my professor’s office. 

Bill smiles at me with a tired grin and says, “Sydney Samuels. With two minutes to spare, this time.” 

For someone who happens to be a computer scientist as much as he is a poet, a masterclass essayist, and teacher, he sure is a punchable nerd. His office is a mess of Dungeons and Dragons, old-school video games and movie posters, with barely space for the bony, gangly man I call my professor. Bill Hendricks holds out his hand for my paper and I slap the pages down on his desk with a triumphant jerk of my chin. 

“It’s good to see you finally turning something in almost on time, for once,” He says. 

“Still the last one done, I hope. Gotta save the best for last.”

He arches an eyebrow, “Mm, we’ll see if it’s the best. But it’s certainly the last. Is there anything else you need from me before we say goodbye for the winter holidays?” 

I shake my head, “No, uh, have a good Christmas, and all that.” 

I step out of the office with a quick goodbye and feel a wave of relief. I’m not dead. I finished the semester with two minutes to spare. Scholarship saved, yet again! I sigh and walk back out to view Pallet City University’s urban campus sprawling along the streets of Kanto City’s Viridian District. The quarry is visible in the distance of the skyline. 

My walk to the apartment is slow compared to my sprint to the arts building. It’s hard to think on anything but the fact that the semester is over, that I’ve got a good near-month to myself as Gary and Daisy inevitably leave the apartment to head to their suburban home. I never go home for the holidays anymore, not if I can help it. What will I even do with my spare time? Pick up another part-time job over the break to make up for my on-campus job being done for the time being? That’s a thought. Who’s even hiring? Surely there’s some seasonal place that could use an extra pair of hands...

When I open the door to the apartment and head inside, I remember that I’ve yet to eat today. I rummage through the fridge, but it’s getting close to groceries time. I scowl and slam the fridge shut. Could go for nuggets, I suppose, but the last thing I want to do is run errands or go out when I could spend the day asleep and lazy while Gary’s at a lab practical and Daisy’s doing grad work…

But as I start towards the kitchen table to sit down and think, the light bulb overhead shatters in with a tight ‘pop’.

“Shit.” I wince at the shower of glass and frantically rush to the closet where we keep the broom. What was with everything in this house? First my laptop, then the lights? 

Just leftover static.

I look under the kitchen sink and find that we’re out of light bulbs. Sighing, I get my bag and head out to do the errands no one wants to do--but that must be done, lest we all perish in our plush apartment lifestyle. 

The nearest hardware store is close, at least--with the quarry taking up such a large part of the Viridian District, it’s only natural there would be one, and I only have to take a walk up First until I’m in the heart of the Viridian District. There’s an urgent care, a convenience store, and several apartment buildings that make up the main circle, but I keep heading north, closer to the quarry. 

The lights flicker as I enter the hardware store. What the Hell? I frown. Things are just not acting right today. I go to the lighting section in the store and pick up the eco-bulbs that Daisy and Gary prefer. 

“Will that be all for you?” The clerk asks as I drop them onto the counter. 

“Yeah.” 

He nods and rings me up. $6.02 with tax. Stupid efficiency bulbs, so expensive compared to the stuff we used at home. I pull out my debit card and insert it into the card reader. 

As my fingers brush close to it, though, more than a spark flies between the card reader and me. It might as well be a full electrical arc that curls around the machinery, which short-circuits on the spot. I jump back. What the--what the what? The fuck? The Hell? 

Sweat beads on my forehead as the clerk gasps and asks if I’m okay. Am I okay? Is this just extra static, really? That felt like more than a little static shock. That felt like I was part of that electrical current. 

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” I say as he asks me again. “Card reader must be on its last legs, huh? I’ve got cash.” I spot him a ten and he gives me my change with a strange look as a light spark passes between our touch. It’s just extra static. It’s just. Extra. Static. People can’t short circuit machinery. 

I catch him examining the card reader and looking just as confused as I am as I leave. 

My stomach rumbles. There’s a Mickey D’s pretty close, at least. I shove the lightbulbs in my backpack and head to the fast food restaurant next. I’ll hit the grocery store last, after I eat some chicken nuggets. 

Because I’m an idiot who doesn’t own a watch, I hit McDonald’s right at an inexplicably late breakfast rush. Wait, then why would my lack of a watch matter? It’s really late for there to be so many people getting McGriddles and bad coffee. It just doesn’t make sense, even if I were to be capable of telling time with technology like all the good boys and girls who buy Silph watches. 

Still, it’s packed as I squeeze my way inside dusty quarry workers and men and women in business casual and suits impatiently wait in line on their phones, eyes on digital clocks and Silph watches as much as they are on the room. 

The line’s not too long at the automated order kiosks, though--namely because the wait’s usually a bit worse--so I hop in behind a couple of kids my age; the girl’s got brightly dyed blue hair that sticks out of the crowd. 

After they order McRibs--I didn’t even know the McRib was back! Nice!--I put my hand to the machine as they leave. A twenty piece nugget, a Diet Coke, fries…

The sweat beading my forehead stings my eyes as it breaks over my skin. I wipe my brow. Why am I sweating so much? It’s not going to be like the card reader. It’s going to be fine.

But my body knows better than my mind; as I press the pay button, I feel a tingle from my toes, up my spine, through my arm and into my finger. 

No, no, no, damn it, no--it’s just extra static my ASS! 

The resulting bolt of energy that comes from my fingers and into the machine sends smoke flying as sparks rush through the kiosk. It makes a whirring sound and suddenly people are shouting and scrambling and I start running. 

I don’t know why I’m running, except that my cheeks are burning with shame and frustration and confusion altogether; my head is spinning and sweat is pouring from my face, like I’ve been running a marathon, that I’m too warm in this stupid sweatshirt, and I forgot to wear an undershirt so I’m stuck in it, and--

“Hey! Wait up!” A young man’s voice calls from behind me. I duck my head and keep going. 

“He said wait! We know what you’re going through!” 

I’m sure you do, random strangers. 

Still, I pause for a second. It’s the girl with blue hair and a brunet boy. He has eyes that look like they’re naturally lined with dark eyeliner--kind of a prettyboy, accentuated by a hawkish nose. The girl has the body of a video game character, the kind that’s way too emphatic on the boobs, and is bounding to catch up to me. I shake my head and keep walking, faster now that I’m being followed. I’ll shake these weirdos somewhere in the District and backtrack my way to the grocery store. 

“Don’t be so stubborn!” The girl calls in a perky voice, “We can help you!” 

“Help me with what? Losing my wallet?” 

“You’re not the only one in this world who can do things no one can explain. Just look at Mythic!” 

Mythic. Kanto City’s resident superhero sensation. Alleged psychic powers, allegedly saving the city from various evils that no normal college student has time to pay attention to... 

“Mythic’s totally a hoax,” I say. 

“Is this a hoax, then?” The boy shouts, and I’m slammed with a violent gust of wind that knocks me into an alleyway. I roll along the brick ground and grimace as I come away with scrapes on my hands. 

“What the fuck?!” 

“I did that.” The boy says. “You’re not the only one who can do weird things, miss.” 

“Don’t do the weird formal thing,” I groan, “Don’t. Call me. ‘Miss.’” 

He rolls his eyes and says, “I just smacked you with what’s practically air-bending, and you don’t want to be called ‘miss’?” 

“I have my priorities straight.” I prop myself up on my elbows as I reply. Besides, who would believe that whatever happened was because of someone controlling the wind? I could’ve just tripped! 

A hand is in my face, an offering of peace. “Let me help you up. I’m Lapis. This is Ace, my boyfr--” 

“Lapis!” Ace hisses, “You’re not just supposed to give out our names like that--” 

“Hey, we’re all supposed to be friends,” She says, too chipper, too pleasant, too ‘power of friendship’ like in the anime shows Gary watches sometimes. “What’s your name?”

Lapis has dark eyes like mine; but unlike mine, they’re vibrant and pleasant. Like a golden retriever. Happy to be here, happy to see you, happy, happy, happy!

“...Sydney.” I take her hand and she lifts me too easily, almost like I weigh nothing--and her grip! It’s like being clamped by steel fists. 

Maybe they aren’t joking about having powers. 

I shake my hand off when Lapis releases it. Ace comes to her side and offers me a pretty-boy smile, clearly pleased that I shared my name, and says: 

“So, Sydney, I know that you’re feeling really confused right now, and--” 

“Spare me the dad wannabe talk, dude. So what, exactly, can you guys do?” 

Ace scowls at me, “Hey, it wasn’t--” 

“It totally was,” I cut him off, “Look, if you guys are going to ‘help’ me, make it worth my time. You both look younger than me--” 

“I’m twenty!” Ace says, adamantly trying to be older and more mature and the mentor I ‘so desperately need’ in his eyes. 

“Twenty-one,” I smirk. 

Deflating, Ace folds his arms across his chest and looks down at his feet. His lips form numbers, one to ten, before he looks me back in the eye. “Right. I control the wind.” 

“And I’m super strong!” Lapis flexes. She’s muscular, but not like she works out--it looks like natural muscle, the kind developed playing intramural sports and hiking in the Viridian Forest Park on the weekends. I shouldn’t be jealous, because I’m about a hundred and ten pounds of nothing (and I’m too lazy to do anything about it). But having felt her grip, I know she’s not lying. She is superhumanly strong.

“Nice.” Is that what I’m supposed to say? Nice? I’m not sure how else to respond; I just have to roll with it and hope.

“And,” Lapis adds, “We’re going to help keep Kanto City safe!” 

I burst out laughing. “As if.” 

Their expressions don’t waver. 

“I’m not signing on to be a superhero,” I warn, “I just want to be normal.” 

“As if you can be, now.” Ace shakes his head. 

“As if I’m helping you two be vigilante village idiots!” 

As if, as if, AS IF! 

Still dead serious, Ace reaches out, “We can help each other! You need to learn how to control your powers, and what better way than with--” 

“No fucking way!” I shout, “You’ll drag my corpse along before you take me out on any bullshit heroic antics! That’s how people die!” 

Ace starts to say something else, but Lapis puts a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, we won’t make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with doing. But,” She adds, “You should at least let us help you stop sparking every two seconds. When I first got my powers, I ripped my dorm door off its hinges! Ace is really good, though, he can do all sorts of tricks and--” 

I arch my eyebrow at her and Lapis shrivels. “U-um, anyway, Sydney, you’ll just wind up hurting someone, or yourself, without help.” 

She has a point. 

“No hero business,” I raise my finger, as if it’s my only condition, “And then, once I’m not shocking everyone and everything I come in contact with, we’re done.” 

“Sure,” Ace says, and offers his hand. 

I take it, and watch his face contort in pain as a jolt of electricity runs between us. 

Sucker.


	4. With Great Power Comes Great Opposition

“You’re doing great, Sydney,” Ace says as I brush my hair down for the tenth time that day. “Lapis, how are you feeling?” 

“Tingly.” She shakes her hand off and offers it to me again. 

Doing great, my ass. It’s been every day for the past week, meeting with Ace and Lapis at Ace’s dinky little apartment, listening to the same mantra of “It’s all in the breathing, Sydney” or “If you think you’re going to shock someone, you will!” over and over and over again, shocking the shit out of Lapis because she’s made of steel or something, and can take round after round of non stop electric shocks, because I’m not doing great! I’m doing fucking awful! 

I hiss through my teeth and take Lapis’s hand again, and watch her body go rigid for a moment as my frustration pumps too much juice into my newfound super-annoying-powers. 

“If you get frustrated, it’s just going to be harder. You need to be calm. What makes you calm?” Ace folds his arms over his chest, trying his best to keep his voice measured and like the mentor he wants so badly to be; I can tell my hurting Lapis is starting to wear on even his “go with the flow” wind-bending bullshit personality. 

“What makes me calm is five cups of coffee and my headphones.” 

“Music!” Ace snaps his fingers, “Music, why didn’t I think of that? What song do you want to listen to?” He goes into the bedroom of the apartment and comes out with a laptop, unplugging a pair of headphones all the while. 

I shake my head. “Nothing else has worked. What makes you think this will be different?” 

“Well, I don’t,” He says, “But we have to try, or Lapis is going to get a perm at this rate.” 

Lapis grins, “You could always let me pick the song for you!” 

“I think I’ll pass,” I say, “The last thing I want to do is listen to Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For A Hero on loop.” Lapis laughs at that, never one to take my petty verbal abuse personally. 

I pull out my phone, surprised as ever to find that in my hand, the battery turns green, as if I’m plugged into a charger, and scroll through my Spotify. 

“How about...hm, Breakbot seems good right now. Baby, I’m Yours.” 

“I never thought I’d hear you say something like that, but I’m yours, too!” Lapis beams and I snap my head at her. She giggles at what must be an indignant expression on my face, but Ace coughs. 

“Settle down, you two. Okay, Sydney, just take a deep breath and listen to the song. Just focus on the music, like we tried with the breathing.” 

Yeah, like that hadn’t been a disaster. 

Still, the easygoing beat of Baby, I’m Yours feels like a hot shower on my fried brain. I close my eyes and let my shoulders relax. I’m not a dancer, so I don’t do anything embarrassing, like wiggle myself along to the beat, but my body eases up on the tension that’s been coiling in my stomach, ready to turn into a cobra and strike on either Lapis or Ace or Gary or Daisy.

The lyrics even feel right for the moment. I thought I had it all together, too, man. But I don’t. I don’t have anything together. I’ve never had it together; I’ve been faking it so long I’ve forgotten to make it, too. Riding on the laurels of a lucky break scholarship, barely turning in my papers on time, forgetting my notebook...being punished for my hubris with these electric powers is only fitting, I suppose, for missing a spark of ambition to actually be somebody. 

“You don’t look relaxed,” Ace’s voice brings me back to the present. “You’re scrunching up your entire face.” 

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” I snap, “Give me a second.” 

Back to the music. Back to the happy space. Nothing but me and the beat. 

And for a moment, I forget that I’m in Ace’s shitty little apartment, and that I have to grab Lapis’s hand in a minute and shock the everloving Hell out of her, and that Gary and Daisy have been looking worried about me, and that my entire life is ostensibly ruined--okay, I can’t forget it, but I can push it aside. I can do this. 

I take Lapis’s hand. 

The spark is visible as our skin meets, and she screams. 

There is no record scratch; the music continues to play, cheerful in the background as I flop, defeated, into one of the kitchen chairs. 

“I give up,” I say. My voice is deflated, tired. If I was one to cry, there might even be a hint of tears constricting my throat. But I’m not one to cry. Not one bit. “I need a break.” 

“Me too.” Lapis shakes out her hand and plops down in the second chair. “All this hard work is making me hungry, too. Are you hungry, Ace?” 

He scratches his cheek and says, “I mean, I guess? Sydney, what about you?” 

My mouth tastes like burnt cardboard--I don’t even know what burnt cardboard would taste like, but my mouth tastes how I would imagine it--so I shake my head, but my stomach still growls at the thought of food. I haven’t had much of an appetite lately, and my body is prone to complain about it even when it should just suck it up and let me waste away in my angst. 

The superhero-wannabe-couple laughs at the sound and Ace gets up and grabs his wallet and keys from a tray on the kitchen counter. “Let’s go out for pizza. I know this really good place in the Pewter District.” 

I sigh, “You want to go all the way through the park? That’s such a long walk…” 

“Sydney, it’ll be worth it! This place is amazing!” Lapis grabs my hand, and, despite the small surge of static shock between us, yanks me up and onto my feet. I sigh again, doing my best to make it sound put-upon, and let the two teenage mutant nerds drag me into the city. 

Ace lives in an apartment near the Viridian Forest Park, a wide, verdant green space where kids with kites and bug nets and pets with frisbees and tennis balls and people reading newspapers or having picnics roam free. It’s one of the only spaces in the city that’s truly green and gorgeous. I loved the park as a kid, especially since it was only on rare occasions that I left the dockside beauty of the Vermilion district to attend birthday parties at the park, and even now it’s a nostalgic place for me as we walk through a trail that cuts from the Viridian District to the business-oriented Pewter District. 

“So you’re sure there’s an actual restaurant in the Pewter District?” I shove my hands into my sweatshirt pocket and force my feet to move at a steady pace alongside Lapis and Ace, or else I’d be halfway across the park while they were at the entrance. I’m not sure how I move so quickly, now, but my walking commute to school in the next semester is going to be a breeze at this pace. 

“Where do you think all the business folks eat?” 

“Packed lunches?” I say, “Duh.” 

Lapis giggles, “Ace’s dad works in the Pewter District, so he knows all sorts of hidden gems there!” 

“I see,” I hum and fall into silence. The Pewter District is a grey, stony place, full of solemn skyscrapers and boring accounting firms, nowhere near as thrilling and gorgeous as the Saffron District (it’s the heart of Kanto City, after all), where more lucrative, well-off firms and businesses make their home. It shouldn’t surprise me that there’s a little spice of life in the district somewhere, but I’ve always avoided the place, so hearing that it’s more than a soul-sucking place where residents of the city go to have their dreams die is definitely more of a shock than not. 

We make it through the park in fifteen minutes--good time--and come out into grey streets and grey buildings and people in cheap suits making their way back from lunch breaks to their cubicle hell. Ace leads us down a few roads and past a large CrossFit gym, I guess for people to use to work out on lunch breaks or before or after having their souls crushed before we arrive at Pewter Pizza. 

What a fucking original name. This is how I’ll know what burnt cardboard tastes like. It’s a hole in the wall and not the kind that Guy Fieri finds and rates as hidden gems. 

The inside is crammed but clean, with two small TVs hanging up in the cramped corners on the Kanto City News Network. There’s one older man with a bushy, stereotypical kind of old-pizza-man mustache behind the counter, wiping down the wooden countertops with a clean rag. 

“Oh, Ace! Lapis!” He smiles, “Brought a new friend?” 

“This is Sydney, Antonio,” Ace motions with his hand to me and then to Antonio. 

“I’ve told ya, call me Tony,” Tony laughs and it’s in that moment that it clicks that Ace has never shortened my name, while Lapis, Gary and Daisy have called me all kinds of things. Syd, Kneebone, Syddles, Syddikins--if it’s stupid, diminutive and has any sort of teasing tone to it, then they’ll find it, call me it, and find my last nerve before getting on it. Syd is okay, at least, but Ace has only ever called me Sydney. What a weird quirk. 

“We want a large deep dish cheese and pepperoni!” Lapis bounces on her heels and adds, “Oh, oh, and three large drinks.” 

“You kids are hungry today! Been up to trouble?” 

“No trouble,” Ace says, “Just forgot to eat breakfast. We got caught up playing video games, you know how it is.” 

That’s one way to tell a lie. 

To my surprise, Ace insists on paying for the pizza and drinks and then doesn’t take long for us to shuffle into a booth and wait. I’m facing the TV, and while Lapis babbles about wanting to go shopping in the Celadon District or go on a date at the Cerulean Lake, I focus in on watching the news. The clean energy project has gone live, Dr. Samuel Oak in interviews later tonight…

“Syd, you okay?” Lapis asks. “You’re totally zoned out.” 

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” I say, “Just watching the TV for a second.” 

“Boooring. Tony only keeps it on the news.” 

I nod. I don’t actually pay attention to the news most days. Too busy dying under a stressful college workload, or sleeping or working my part-time job at the library or doing something stupid with Gary and Daisy...who has time to be depressed by the constant crime that only a vigilante maniac like Mythic can stop? 

Our pizza comes out hot and greasy and glorious and I almost feel bad for thinking Tony’s pizza would taste like burnt cardboard. It looks delicious and oozing cheese and pepperonis. Lapis takes three slices, Ace takes two, and I take two.

The first bite misses my mouth as an earthquake shakes the building. Hot cheese lands with a wet slap on my jeans and I drop the pizza onto the paper plate in front of me with a loud cry of surprise. Lapis gasps and grabs onto Ace, whose face looks pale in shock. 

“What the Hell was that?” I glance past the booth to look outside, but I see nothing but pavement. No cars moving by. No people. 

Lapis starts to reply, but a second earthquake shakes us so hard my teeth chatter and my stomach does three backflips before it’s over. 

“The actual fu--” 

Tony turns up the TV in time for me to hear, “...the police have declared mandatory evacuation for all Pewter District residents...strange man throwing giant boulders and parts of skyscrapers has been sighted making his way towards the Museum of Natural Sciences. Please follow all emergency action plans and make your way out of the District…” The third earthquake sends static lines across the television before it cuts back on, “And as this man is on a path of destruction in our city, the public asks, ‘Where is Mythic?’” 

“Alright, kids, you heard the news,” Tony calls, “We need to get out of here.” 

I nod vigorously, “You don’t have to tell me twice.” 

But Ace grabs my sleeve and pulls me back as I stand up and start to bolt. “Wait, Sydney.” 

“I’d rather not wait and have a building fall on me,” I say, “I’ve already died twice in my life. Can we not make it three?” 

Lapis’s eyes are bright with some kind of crazed energy that I do not have the spoons for. She says, “But Sydney, it’s if Mythic hasn’t shown up…” 

Oh no. Oh HELL to the fucking no. Hell to the naw, naw, NO and NAY. 

“We are not doing this,” I say, tone sharp enough to make both Ace and Lapis flinch. “You told me no hero business--” 

“We told you we wouldn’t make you do anything you were uncomfortable with,” Ace’s voice is even. 

Shit. He got me there. 

“You two shouldn’t get involved if there’s a maniac tearing off pieces of skyscrapers. Don’t be stupid. You’ll get yourselves killed!” 

“Someone’s got to step in.” Lapis’s expression becomes more intense, more excited, fiery and ready to jump into the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. “We’re the only ones who can.” 

“Oh my GOD.” I slap my hand on my face. “Don’t you know how absolutely ridiculous you sound?” 

“It’s not ridiculous,” Ace says, defensive, “If Mythic decided--” 

I notice Tony’s staring, and I still can’t stop myself from shouting, “You’re not Mythic! You’re just dumb kids--we’re all just dumb kids! You’ll die before you make a difference!” 

“You don’t know that.” Ace stands up and goes to the door, opening it for Lapis and Tony and me. “But you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable doing.” 

We move onto the street and I watch Ace and Lapis run deeper into the Pewter District while emergency vehicle sirens are blaring and cracks are running up and down the pavement and asphalt roads and two kids who I barely know but who’ve been a helluva lot nicer to me than I’ve been to them are running straight into danger because of stupid ideals that they don’t understand-- 

“Oh, this is so stupid,” I groan as my feet start carrying me towards Lapis and Ace. “I’m such an idiot, I’m going to die, I can’t believe I’m doing this...” 

And in seconds, I catch up to Lapis and Ace. 

Not that they managed to make it far: there’s a savage earthquake that has them both knocked flat on their asses. A huge, shirtless man lifts a boulder over his head and chucks it straight for Lapis and Ace. 

“THE BROCK HAS NO TIME FOR CHILDISH GAMES,” He shouts and I feel a snort of laughter escape my throat even as I watch the boulder flying to crush Lapis and Ace in slow motion. The Brock? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard--a guy who has earth powers calling himself The B-Rock? 

Oh God, oh my GOD, ha-hahaha-ha-haahAHAH--FUCK! Ace and Lapis are helplessly struggling to get up from the ground as the giant rock flies down to crush them both. What do I do? What do I do, oh Hell, I didn’t even think this far ahead--

But it never hits. There’s a loud explosion and the rock veers off to the side, crashing into a building and leaving a vicious trail of smoke and dust. I start to cough and cover my mouth and nose as best I can. 

As the dust clears, standing between Lapis and Ace and the Brock is a masked person with a dark outfit and cape. A cape. In this day and age? You’ve actually got to be kidding me! It’s even fluttering in the wind and everything. Holy SHIT. 

“This isn’t your business, kids. Didn’t you hear the evacuation notices?” The masked stranger’s voice is muffled, strange. Using a voice changer? With the full mask covering their features, I can’t even make out a detail about them. 

“We want to help!” Lapis clenches her fists, “We’re strong, we can make a difference.” 

They shake their head, “The last thing I need is kids like you getting in the way. I’ll handle this problem.” 

“Maybe you should listen to them,” I shout from a few feet back, “I fucking TOLD you, and did you listen? You guys nearly died!” 

The Brock interrupts us, “I don’t have TIME for this. I will crush everything that gets in my way--” 

“What do you even want?” The masked stranger cuts him off, “No one has time for your melodrama--stand down and surrender to your arrest.” 

How weirdly formal. 

The Brock laughs, loud and hearty, “Little Mythic pretender thinks the Brock will indulge them in a monologue! The business of the Rockets is none of yours! Now, get out of the way.” 

The Rockets? Why did that name sound familiar? 

The masked stranger flings back their cape and for a moment I see a belt full of cool gadgets and gizmos that glitter and gleam in the overcast daylight. It’s a badass gesture as the masked stranger--that’s their name in my head, now--takes something off their belt and shoots it into a building. It’s some kind of thing like a hookshot in Legend of Zelda, and they’re lifted off the ground as the Brock makes a charge for them. With elegant movements, the masked stranger flips and repels off the side of the building, firing the hookshot off into an adjacent one that gives them an angle to swing down and kick the Brock. 

The Brock punches the masked stranger right through a glass window. There’s a barely audible “Oof!” as the air audibly leaves their lungs. They don’t return. 

I zip over to Ace and Lapis and grab their arms, “That means it’s time for us to run.” 

“But--what about them?” Lapis points at the broken window, “Someone has to stop the Brock!” 

“Please stop even gratifying his stupid name,” I say, “And hurry--” 

Out of the corner of my eyes, I see the Brock stomp his foot. The ground shakes and knocks me flat where I join Ace and Lapis in the “on our asses like sitting ducks” club. 

“Fuck.”

“You can say that again,” Ace staggers up, helping Lapis, and then me, in a mad scramble as the Brock charges through us. I go flying as he clips my shoulder, sliding on the pavement and coming away with sticky arms and knees under my sweatshirt. Is my shoulder dislocated? Okay, maybe it doesn’t hurt enough to be dislocated, but...

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” I groan. “Can we just go? Let him go! Let the cops try to stop him or whatever!” 

But suddenly the Brock is flying backward and into a wall. Lapis drops her leg from a roundhouse kicking stance and her eyes are practically shining with the thrill of combat. 

“That’s for you, Syd!” Lapis cheers, and bounces on her heels as always. Ace helps me up. 

It’s only a split second before a rock nails Lapis right in her chest and sends her careening through the air. Ace cries out in horror and I gasp. 

The Brock dusts himself off, “The Brock felt conflicted about hitting a little girl, but you can take it. So now, the Brock will crush you, and then move on with his business.” He starts to walk towards Lapis with steady, horror-movie villain steps. 

“The Brock can stop narrating his shitty B movie villain script out loud, now,” I snarl. What an asshole! What a stupid asshole!

Lapis stirs from the heap she’s crumpled in with a little laugh at my jab. She’s alive! Oh, thank GOD, she’s alive! We’re not dead! But then Ace grabs my sleeve and yanks me to where we stand between Lapis and the Brock. 

We’re dead. 

“Get away from her!” Ace takes some kind of karate stance and slashes his hands forward. Bursts of cutting wind fly from his fists, but the Brock keeps walking, unbothered by the gusts of air that I can feel cutting at my skin worse than the winter chill. Oh, shit. This guy is strong. 

“Sydney, shock him! Do your thing!” 

I look between Ace and the Brock, baffled. “No way! I’m not going to touch him!” 

But I have no choice. The Brock is bearing down on us with more and more pressure. The ground shakes a little with every forceful step he takes. I swallow, dart forward, and slap my hand right on his bare chest.

Nothing happens. 

There’s no spark, no tingle of my powers activating. Nothing. 

“Well, shit,” I say. 

The Brock laughs and swipes at me. I see him coming from a mile away, and with unnatural grace for me, I duck out of the way and dart behind him, slapping my hand on his back again. Nothing. 

“Why isn’t it working? Ace, why the fuck are my powers gone??!!!” 

“I don’t know--oof!” He’s thrown back by the Brock (who has completely ignored me and has moved on his slow trail of destruction) and collapses against debris from one of the buildings. 

Lapis is standing in an instant and she cries out, “Ace!” She’s not watching the Brock’s steady progress towards her; she’s more concerned that Ace is down. 

“PAY ATTENTION!” In one moment, I’m behind them, and in the next, I’ve got Lapis by her arm and pull her out of the way just in time for the Brock to slam his foot down and open a crack right up the street. 

Okay, Syd. Think. Think, think, think, do anything but think of the word THINK, God damn it. 

My powers aren’t working. I’m just a speedy mosquito doing nothing more than annoying this rock-slinging, earthquake-making psycho jackass. 

But Lapis could hurt him. Lapis just needs to focus, to pay attention, to think, for one second--no, wait, I could think for her. 

“Lapis, listen to me.” I dart behind her and put my hands on her shoulders, steering her at the Brock. “If you want to help Ace, you have to help yourself, first. This guy is going to kick our asses unless you kick his. Literally. So I need you to focus, for one second, on something other than your boyfriend, or else we’re all going to get crushed. And--” God, I talk so fast. “--And, if I haven’t made it clear, I really am tired of dying.” 

Lapis exhales shakily. I feel it in her shoulders that she’s sniffling. Scared? Frustrated? I don’t cry, so I wouldn’t know what emotions are tumbling through her mind, but she turns her head to me, eyes glistening, and nods. 

“What do I do?” She whispers. “I don’t actually know how to fight.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lapis!” I throw my head back in a dramatic groan and shove her at the Brock, “Just imagine you’re Jackie Chan!” 

She looks like a deer caught in headlights, “I’ve never seen a Jackie Chan movie!” Then how the fuck did she know how to roundhouse kick? Or is it that I don’t know what a proper roundhouse kick is?

I hate them both so much. How am I one year older than Ace and yet so much older in my soul? Okay, hate is a strong word, I don’t hate them, they just give me so much second-hand embarrassment and anxiety and I need to slow down and help Lapis or we’re all gonna die! Rrrrrrrghhh!! 

“Okay, Lapis, when he swings at you, he’s going to be off balance, because he’s a big motherfucker. So what you need to do is give him a solid hit when he leaves that opening. He doesn’t know how to fight, either! He’s just a lard ass throwing his weight around!” I cup my hands around my mouth at the last sentence to get the Brock’s attention. 

“Listen, Bad-Dye-Job,” the Brock growls, “I warned you that I would crush you.” He flexes his fist and the debris lifts with him, creaking and groaning as all of the broken stone and cement pieces defy gravity and slowly rotate above the Brock in a massive sphere. “Now get out of my way, and maybe the Rockets will forget that you exist when I’m done with your little friends.” 

I take a step back, and my heart is pounding in my ears and I can practically smell how terrified I am with how much I’m sweating, but I put my hand on my chest and say, “Were you trying to hurt the one feeling I have? It’d take someone with more than two brain cells to pull that off. ” 

The Brock gives me an angry grunt and drops the rock over us. I take a step back too quickly, heel scuffing on a crack in the pavement. Going ass over shoulders, I land flat on my face. Bad. Bad superpowers. Making me look cool and graceful and then like a drunk horse in the same breath. You giveth and you taketh away my one remaining shred of dignity. 

But as I look up to see the massive amalgamation of rock hurtling at us, Lapis does something incredible. She leaps forward and slams her fist straight into the rock. It’s like that one scene in the Resident Evil game, only not ridiculously hammy and kind of amazingly badass. The rock explodes in a million pieces, cutting into my skin as it rains down, and I can only imagine how the debris is cutting through Lapis, but she carries through in the momentum and lands with her heel straight on the Brock’s chest. There’s no grisly crunch--he’s just that strong--but there is a loud thump, like someone’s punching a slab of beef off camera, and the Brock groans and staggers back, unable to grab at Lapis in time before she lands lightly on one foot and whirls around in a proper, a real and proper roundhouse kick.

It catches the Brock squarely in his jaw and there’s a sharp sound that precedes the Brock crumpling like a Jenga tower. 

I push myself up and hear laughter coming from my gut before I fully process what’s happening. 

“Fucking, haha, nice, ha--ha, hahahaha,” I can barely stand up, “Oh my God, hahahahaha, we’re not dead! You did it!” 

Lapis looks down at her legs and then at me. “Yeah,” She murmurs, “I did it. I...was a hero!” 

Before I can make a snarky remark to ruin her mood, sirens interrupt my train of thought. 

Wait. We had just done vigilante bullshit in a public space. Oh shit. Time to run. Run from the cops, Sydney, the last thing you need is to try to explain to Mom and Dad how you got fucking arrested for fighting a half-naked man in a public space. 

I dart forward, grab Lapis’s wrist--somehow without shocking her, where the HELL have my powers gone?--and drag her to Ace, who is still unconscious on the ground. 

“Shit. I can’t carry him,” I say. 

Lapis gives me a Look™ and easily hefts her taller boyfriend in her arms. It’s probably the funniest thing I have ever seen, and I start to giggle like an idiot before I remember that we need to get the fuck on with our lives. 

I ask, “Should we take him to a hospital?” 

She just shakes her head. “He’ll heal fine without it. Superpowers, remember?” 

We dart into an alley and find our way to Ace’s apartment. After we put Ace on the couch and get an ice pack for his head, the first thing I do is flip on the news. 

“...In the absence of Mythic, this terrorist known as ‘the Brock’ was brought to justice by unknown parties today...police Commissioner [name] Koga speaks on the subject now. Let’s head over to Sarah, who is at the Fuchsia District police department…” 

Sarah comes on the screen, one of those stereotypically pretty newscasters. Behind her is the vibrant brick that defines the Fuchsia District’s buildings, and at a podium on the staircase leading to the Kanto City PD’s Fuchsia building is a severe looking man with hair that’s wild from wearing a hat all day stands at it. I hardly register what Sarah says as a prelude to what comes out of the police commissioner’s mouth: 

“This city is better off without vigilantes with hero complexes causing destruction and mayhem in our districts. If anyone knows the identity of these Mythic pretenders--and Mythic, too, if they dare show their face again--report it immediately to your local police department. The law will handle lawbreakers. We don’t need the help of near-terrorists with good intentions.” 

“Damn,” Lapis whistles, “We’re going to need masks next time.”


	5. Useless Without Powers

“Can you believe what happened in the Pewter District?” Gary asks me as my head almost droops down into my cereal. I haven’t been sleeping well after it, so no, I can’t believe what happened, but all I can manage is a weak head shake before I spoon a large helping of Lucky Charms straight into my face.

His wild eyebrows furrow down and make his face look immediately almost condescending. If I didn’t know Gary, I probably would think he’s an exceedingly punchable nerdy know-it-all for giving me a look like that, but I know Gary. He’s been worried about me, and his follow-up question only makes me feel guilty for that fact: 

“Are you okay, Syd?” 

I swallow my cereal and yawn, “Yeah, just...tired, man. I’ve screwed my sleep schedule, you know how I am on holidays.” 

Gary sits his own bowl of cereal down on the table and then sits himself down in the same careful manner. “Why don’t you come home with Daisy and me for the holiday?” 

“I don’t want to impose,” I shrug, “Besides, I’ve got plans to be finding work, y’know? Maybe one of the papers is hiring winter interns.” 

“You could find a job out in the suburbs, too.” 

“Being a barista at an overcrowded Starbucks? I’d rather chance my luck being an unpaid intern, not to sound ungrateful. I’ve done my time in food service and retail.” Gary nods, although I know he doesn’t quite get it. His grandparents are successful and well-off; mine are, in a way, but I’ve been working random jobs since I was fifteen. ‘Successful people are made by work, not born’ or so they say, that ‘your life is your fault’, but Gary and Daisy have always been successful, and I have always been mediocre. I run my hand over my face and Gary’s face does that thing again. 

He says, “You’re really worrying me. Do you need to go to the doctor? Think you’re coming down with something?” 

“Yeah, with a case of ligma--” 

“I’m not falling for that again!” 

I snicker--an honest to God snicker--and say, “Well, can’t blame me for trying. I’m fine, though, really. Just being irresponsible.” I’m tired of him pushing my health around as a concern--Daisy too, when she’s here and not at work--so I change the subject, “But yeah, can’t believe what happened. I bet the District is gonna be shut down for a while. Shame, because there’s a good pizza place there.” 

“When have you ever been interested in the Pewter District?” 

Ah, shit. 

“Uh,” I say, “I was looking at jobs the other day and kinda just found a pizza joint while I was shilling my resume.” Sounds legitimate, right? Sure, it’s legitimate. I have totally not been involved in vigilante activities in the past 24 hours. 

Gary smiles. He knows I’m uncomfortable when he and Daisy mom-friend me, but he’s trying his best and I can’t begrudge him for it. “Yeah, well, I’m glad you weren’t there yesterday. What were you up to, anyway? You got in super late.” 

“Oh, well, I was just hanging out with some folks from the English department. We went out for beers.” I pause and then try to make the smuggest face I can imagine, “You wouldn’t know what it’s like, only being twenty, and all.” 

“Tough talk from someone who got so drunk her first year of college she wound up in a trash can!” 

“We don’t talk about that!” I gasp, putting my hand on my chest as though I’m legitimately offended. I’m not. It’s fucking hilarious, and I’m a legend. At least I’ll be a legend for a couple more years, until I graduate. But I’ll be legendary for my sloppy freshman episodes for a while longer. “Daisy appreciates my antics, at least.” 

“Daisy is an enabler,” He sighs in the most put-upon way imaginable and picks at his cereal. “But really, Syd, are you sure you don’t want to come home with us for Christmas? It wouldn’t be imposing, and besides, why aren’t you going home, anyway?” 

“My folks went on a cruise, actually,” I roll my eyes, “I found out because they posted it on Instagram.” 

“Yikes.” Gary whistles. 

“Yeah, fucking yikes. Anyway, I’d rather just laze around the apartment and maybe try to submit some applications out for internships, or whatever happens, y’know?” I stretch and fold my arms behind my head, aiming to look nonchalant. I almost fall out of my chair, instead. Gary laughs at that and snorts milk out of his nose, which leads both of us to cackling like maniacs. 

“We’re gonna miss you, Syd,” He says, voice too soft.

I stop smiling. “It’s really fine, Gary. Don’t worry about me—how much trouble can I get into without you and Daisy around to help me find it, anyway?” This makes his smile return, and Gary shrugs in response and digs back into his cereal. 

It makes me sick how easy it’s been to lie to them both. 

After breakfast, Gary finishes packing his bags for the holidays. I think about flipping the TV on, but I don’t feel up to it, opting instead to put on Spotify and let the tunes roll out my headphones for a while. I wish I could tell Gary and Daisy about what’s going on with me, but with my powers on the fritz, I don’t think I could even prove it to them—I don’t think they’d believe me without proof, since both of them are hard-boiled science freaks, but I still want to confide in them. 

And still, when I try to find the words, they don’t come. I sigh and throw my forearm over my eyes. On top of the stress of this weird double life, where I work with Ace and Lapis on the touch-and-go nature of my powers and hide everything from my best friends for life, I’m not sleeping well, which is making me more stressed. I thought finals were my breaking point, but I’ve never lied to my friends like this before. It’s kind of awful. What kind of friend am I, anyway? 

There’s a heavy thudding in my chest and all of a sudden I’m far too aware of how my heart is beating in my ribcage. Thud-thump, thud-thump, all too fast. I try to take a deep breath and it catches, and I can’t even jolt upright. I’m frozen in the spot, paralyzed by anxiety. 

And it’s in that state I fall into a fitful nap on the couch.

When I wake up, Gary is gone, and Daisy’s bag is missing from where it had been sitting by the door. The only sound comes from my headphones blaring the Mystery Skulls and the only light is filtering in from the kitchen window that overlooks the street. I don’t know how I know that everyone is gone, but it’s just a strong sensation of emptiness in the apartment, the kind that feels like when you’re about to move out and everything’s stacked in boxes and the power’s turned off and it’s wintry cold. I shiver. It’s cold in here, anyway. 

Getting up from the couch, I head into the kitchen and find my phone sitting on the counter. There are three text messages on it: 

12:59 P.M. GARY OAK: I didn’t want to wake you up, but Daisy and I had to leave to beat traffic out of the city. Let’s meet up for lunch one day next week. Or you could come over for dinner? Idk, Syd, just lmk what you wanna do. 

1:03 P.M. DAISY OAK: LMAO LOOK @ U 

There’s a picture of me knocked out on the couch, mouth half opened, forearm thrown over my face and legs half kicked up on the top of the couch. I laugh and scroll to my next message. 

2:20 P.M. ACE GREYSON: Hey Sydney, Lapis gave me your number. Come over when you get a chance, we found something interesting.

I spend a few minutes replying to the messages from Gary and Daisy before I even consider what I want to say to Ace. What could be so interesting that they want me to go all the way to Ace’s place? I scowl and text him back: 

3:00 P.M. SYDNEY SAMUELS: is it pizza? if its not pizza i dont wanna 

There’s only a few moments pause before he answers:

3:01 P.M. ACE GREYSON: There is pizza involved if you hurry. Lapis has already had four slices. 

Well, that’s motivation enough. I grab my slip on converse and my hoodie and throw them all on. It’s overcast outside when I head out, almost a drizzle that still paints the world in bright grey. It’s been too warm to snow this year, but I imagine with the weather getting like this there still might be hope for a white Christmas. That I’d spend alone. Eating Chinese food from the Golden Pangolin. I huff and a puff of visible air floats from my cracked lips. I should’ve grabbed some chapstick before I left. 

I make the trip to Ace’s without fanfare and knock on the door to his apartment, shuffling in place. I should’ve worn my parka, because God, if I’m not freezing my buns off! It’s way colder than I thought at first, and walking down streets where the wind is funneled between buildings just really sent home the fact that I seriously underprepared.

It feels like an eternity of cold before Ace cracks the door open and gives me a look. “Oh, hey Sydney.” 

“Syddy!” Lapis calls from the back room, “I saved you a slice of pepperoni!” 

“Thanks.” Ace lets me in and I pick one of the rickety kitchen chairs to plop down in while Lapis slides me a plate and a can of Diet Coke. 

“Only Diet?” I grimace.

“Duh, like, it’s so much spicier!” Lapis rolls her eyes, with the look of ‘don’t you know anything ’ marking her expression up like a cartoon. I open it anyway and kick it back. My mouth is still dry from my anxiety-riddled nap, so anything is a welcome respite from the desert that’s taking up my taste buds.

Ace watches me with barely concealed impatience. His face is eager, pretty boy eyes shining bright with a focus and intensity that reminds me of a bird of prey on the hunt, instead of a kind of nerdy boy who probably wants to tell me about a convenience store robbery he stopped. 

After I take a slow bite of still-warm pizza, I look at Ace and nod. “Somfing you wan’ed to tell me?” 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” He says, tone surprisingly stern, before he continues, “Anyway, yeah. So you know how that ‘the Brock’ dude mentioned something about ‘Rocket’?” 

I shake my head. I hadn’t really been paying attention to all the fine details of the incident in the Pewter District—I had been more concerned with the fact that death was waiting for me at any moment, that I was going to get crushed, that my powers weren’t working—not that they’d get the picture, with their hero-crazed brains. 

“Oh. You need to pay more attention to these things.” Ace shakes his head at me. “So the Rockets are, like, this organized crime syndicate. No one knows who runs it, and they’ve been giving the cops all kinds of trouble. And what I could find on the Internet seems to say that they can do things no one can explain, which is how they get away with everything.” 

“Okay. What does this have to do with anything?” 

“Well, obviously they must be after something important if they sent a dude like that out in broad daylight. To me, it sounds like some kind of decoy to distract the cops.” 

“So you’re a conspiracy theorist,” I say, and Lapis snorts before Ace shuts both of us up with a keen glare.

“No.” His tone is defensive. “I’m just. Doesn’t it make sense? The Brock guy wasn’t after anything, he was just out to cause chaos. You know what was also having trouble yesterday?” 

“What?” 

“There was a disturbance at the Mount Moon station.” 

The Mount Moon station connected the Pewter and Cerulean districts by subway. What could even be there worth causing a disturbance over? 

“Well, that’s what we should go find out.” Ace says. Did I voice that question out loud? Oops. I guess I did, because Lapis is nodding at me and Ace like she’s following the conversation, all the while shoving more pizza down her face. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“You think all of my ideas are bad.” 

“Without Lapis, your last idea would have been beyond bad,” I say. “You almost died.” 

He rolls his eyes, “We’ll be more careful this time.” 

“But my powers aren’t working anymore.” I furrow my brow at them. “I’m useless.” 

“No, you’re not.” Lapis says, “You’re the one who figured out how to beat the Brock! You’re like, fearless leader material.” 

“Scared shitless material, more like,” I say it without thinking about the consequences, and Ace and Lapis both start laughing hysterically at me. 

Ace is the first to stop laughing. “Okay, but for real, Sydney, we should do something about this. Everything on the news lately has been wild—and it’s all because Mythic has gone missing. No one realized what Mythic even did for Kanto City until they up and disappeared…” 

I frown harder. So what if the town was acting up? Sure, crime had been on the rise lately, but it was a big city. Crime was always going to be a thing. What could one person even do that would make more of a difference than a more vigilant police force? 

“I know you don’t think it’s a good idea,” Ace continues, “But Lapis and I are going to go to the station anyway and investigate what’s going on.” 

Putting my head in my hands, I feel my shoulders start to shake with laughter that doesn’t reach my throat. This is too much. They’re too much. “Dear God,” I say breathlessly, “You two are going to get me killed.” 

“We’ll be careful. This is a covert operation!” Lapis gets up and goes out of the kitchenette to the living room, where she picks up a bag off the coffee table. I arch my eyebrow at her. 

“What’s that?” 

Ace rubs his hands together, “Lapis thought we needed disguises, so we came up with some last night.” 

“What’d you do, hit up Party City for those cheap Mythic costumes?”

Lapis giggles, “Actually, I sewed up some little face covers for us. If you put your hood up to hide your hair, too, you should be pretty—“ 

 

“If it’s a mask that like, covers my cheekbones, I’m pretty sure my face is still recognizable.” 

“Just wear it and the hood,” Ace sounds exasperated by my constant jabbing. 

They don’t get it, I think, just how dangerous everything they’re interested in is. I put my hands on the table and say, “Listen, you guys, this isn’t some kind of game. We literally almost died in the Pewter District.” 

“I know.” Lapis says. “But if someone doesn’t do something, more people will die as a result of the Rockets or any other criminal. People respond to heroes, Sydney.”

“Heroes have a high mortality rate.” 

Ace shakes his head, “We’ll be careful this time. No powers, no funny business. We’re just going to act like tourists going to the Cerulean District to see the wild animals at the lake. Sound good?”

I lift up the mask Lapis handed me and point at it, “Wearing these. We’re going as masked tourists?” 

Ace nods.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

We don’t put on the masks right away, thank God. Mount Moon station is thriving with young people—Cerulean District is a hot spot for picnic dates and general vacation shenanigans, and in the winter there are ice skating rinks and other winter attractions that bring tourists in from all over, including other parts of the sprawling Kanto metropolis. It’s easy to keep up with Lapis and Ace in the crowd, what with Lapis’s obvious, brightly dyed hair. 

“You ever think about going to your natural color?” I ask her nonchalantly as we climb down the stairs to the subway. 

“No way,” She laughs, “Do you?” 

“What, you think I’m not a natural blonde?” 

“Not with those roots, you’re not.” 

I put my hand on my chest, “That hurt. That hurt really bad.” 

“You should think about getting them touched up, Sydney.” 

Ace interrupts us, “Can you girls focus? You can talk about your hair when we’re not trying to look for suspicious activity.”

“We can find suspicious activity when we actually, you know, get past the crowds in the stairs.” 

I pay for tickets for the three of us—since they bought me pizza, it’s the least that I can do—and we enter the Mount Moon Station proper. 

 

It’s bustling, as always, with people of all ages, commuters or tourists or bored teenagers, backpacks and briefcases and winter coats the only distinguishing features on any one individual. How many of these people are going home, or going back to work, or to after-school activities, shopping, doing anything, everything? Everyone has a destination, a place, a goal, and yet in a moment the connecting factor is sitting in this cramped subway station, waiting for the next rail.

“You look lost in thought.” Ace has his hands in his pockets, but I can see his fist through the jeans, clenching around the mask Lapis made for him. He’s really into this whole hero thing--his intense eyes are on high alert for any sign of Rocket activity. 

“It’s just funny,” I reply, “how everything connects.” 

“You’re so weird,” Lapis says. 

“Says Sailor Moon and her trusty sidekick Avatar Aang.” 

Ace looks furious, but Lapis’s cheerful laughter eases the tension as suddenly as I’d made it. We start to look around instead, but nothing pops up as out of the ordinary. Just people moving to and fro, loading onto the rails or disembarking with just as much attention paid to their surroundings as you do to the easy listening station on the radio at work--enough to hear the background noise, but not enough to really pay attention, to be present. We spend about an hour looking; I get bored within five minutes and spend most of my time perusing a pretzel stand in a tense battle of wallet versus stomach. But I can pick out Lapis and Ace in the crowd, watching, ever vigilant. 

Of course, it’s as I buy a pretzel that I spot it. The ‘it’ in question is easy to miss if it wasn’t for a tall red-headed dude slipping out of the crowd and towards an ‘under construction’ section of the platform that’s been blocked off with wire fencing, tarp, and yellow tape. He doesn’t have on a safety vest or hard hat or boots, so it can’t be that he’s a contractor or worker of any kind--in fact, he’s kind of awkward looking--and immediately the pieces fall into place. 

There’s been no construction announcement on the public transit sites. I would know, I use the public transports frequently. But people don’t pay attention! If someone hadn’t flagged me to look past the pretzels, I would’ve been just as blind, just as content to accept that there might be some random construction going on. There was almost always construction somewhere on the rail network. It was believable. But wrong. Off. Yes. 

My feet carry me to the path the redhead followed himself; Lapis and Ace must notice me, pretzel lifted to my lips, staring dumbly because in moments they are at my side as we face the CAUTION tape marking a big ass hole in the station wall. 

“Good eyes, Sydney,” Ace says. 

“Mmfmph,” Modesty is my greatest quality--and once I manage to force down the plush, salty, buttery piece of carby goodness down my throat I clarify, “Yeah, I know.” What I should say: lucky break. What I say next: “Some guy went this way. Looked kinda sketch.” 

Lapis whistles, “Looks like we’re onto something, then! Should we just go in after him?” 

I shake my head, “With our luck, we’d get busted.” 

The silence that follows me is intense only for a second, intense only because it shatters in an abrupt, piercingly male cry and devolves from that into the kind of shuffling and skittering that belongs to real fistfights, and not the meat-slab smacking that goes with poorly choreographed T.V. brawls. 

Ace looks at me, then over me, to Lapis. She nods and Ace nods and I’m shaking my head. 

Before the “don’t even think about it” comes from between my teeth, Ace takes off. I’ve never realized that he’s fast, maybe because I’ve never really seen him in action, but the way he dashes behind the tarp leaves a gust of wind behind him and my hair flying back wildly. Lapis leaps after him and I’m left in the lurch, a decision that’s too easily made left on my shoulders: 

Stay, and get in trouble, or go, and get in trouble. 

But I can’t bear to imagine what might happen to my resident idiot friends if I don’t help them--because, as I said, modesty is my greatest quality, and I know that I’m the reason Lapis got it together enough to beat the Brock--and I run behind the tarp and down a long stretch of platform before I get to a staff access door that’s hanging off its hinges. 

A man in a black uniform goes flying out of the door and crashes into a tile wall, sliding unceremoniously into a heap on the ground. Another comes flying out, ass over head, with a cry of surprise and pain. 

I peer around the door and see Ace and Lapis facing down at least six dudes--so there had been eight (yeah, I can do a little math)--all of them in unmarked black. That’s not at all sketchy, or alarming, and yet both of my friends are ready to throw down like it’s their destiny! The red-headed guy is curled in a ball on the ground, clutching at his body desperately. 

“Leave him alone!” Lapis points at him. “What’d he even do to you goons, anyway?” 

“Didn’t you see the construction signs? No trespassing!” 

“What does that make you?” Ace sneers and dusts off his jacket, “Tourists?” 

Bless him, he’s trying. 

They all exchange glances, and the leader of the gaggle of goons steps forward and, oh shit, does he have a gun? Is he--no, okay, he’s not armed, he’s just got some kind of...it’s a shovel. The guy has a shovel. What are they doing down here that needs a shovel?

Ace doesn’t seem bothered by the prospect of getting hit by a shovel. And why should he? As the lead goon takes a swing at him, Ace does this elegant duck and blows a gust of air right into the man’s gut, sending him flying like a rogue bowling ball into his cronies. All six of them fall to a tangle of legs and arms on the ground. 

Lapis helps the red-head up. He’s nearly got a foot on her--several inches on Ace and me--but he staggers with her superhuman aid and nearly tumbles face first. He’s awkward as he ducks into his yellow and white jacket, trying to hide a blush. 

“Many thanks,” He says, voice oddly pleasant, “But--” 

“Guys.” I see it happening in slow motion: the leader of the goons gets up, lifting his shovel right over Ace’s head. As Ace turns too late to dodge the swing, the king mook...goes flying in the air -- everything goes a little airborne as the ground quakes under my feet and I nearly go flying, too. 

What the -- like the Brock? What? 

“Ramiel!” A young woman’s voice snaps, “What did I tell you about following me?” 

In seconds, a short brunette girl joins us--Lapis and I are on the lower end of average, but this girl is short--and grabs the tall red-head (Ramiel?) by his jacket lapels. Her expression is righteously furious, her thick, dark brows lowered so intensely that both Ace and Lapis step back towards me to get away from her. 

“Sorry, Terra,” He says with a low whine, “You just were taking so long, and I got worried that they’d got you, and--” 

Her expression softens, “Ram, don’t worry about it. I got what I came here for, anyway, and--” 

There’s the sound of shouting and voices coming from deeper down the hall, where the mysterious girl came from. It cuts everyone off and she scowls. “Looks like they’re trying to follow me. Let’s go.” 

It’s then that she notices Ace and Lapis (and me). 

“Who are you?” 

“We could ask you the same thing,” Ace says. 

“We’re all in the ‘let’s not get busted by the Rockets’ boat--these guys are Rockets, right?” I ask, think better of it, and continue, “So we can all talk later, when we’re on a train to another District and they can’t catch us.” 

Lapis nods at me, “Syd’s right, we should go. You guys can come with us, we’ll keep you safe!” 

Terra looks offended, “I don’t need protecting!” 

“Look, we can debate who needs what later.” I put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Right now, we should go, before we get pinned between those guys and cops, or worse.” 

That abates the arguing; we all take off, Ace and Lapis holding hands and Terra all-but dragging Ramiel down the hall and out into the station proper. People give us looks as we dart onto the conveniently now-arriving, outbound Cerulean Rail. 

As the rail takes off, I see the goons stagger out into the dim subway station lighting and look wildly around for us. 

“Suckers,” I whisper. We all fall silent as the rail enters the tunnel, except for the tall guy’s ragged breathing. 

“Who exactly are you guys, anyway? What were you doing down there?” Lapis asks after a few heartbeats. 

“I could ask you the same,” Terra says, “But I’m Terra Reid. This is Ramiel. I was investigating the Rockets, until you three came along and ruined it all.” 

“I didn’t do anything,” I put my hand on my chest. “But that really was the Rocket gang?” 

Terra nods, “They’re doing some kind of digging. Not sure what for.” She cuts off Ace’s obvious question with a quick word and a quicker look. “But I know that they have a base of operations in Cerulean. And that’s where I’m headed next.” 

“We’ll go with you!” Lapis smiles. 

“We want to find out what they’re doing down there,” Ace says as explanation. 

“I don’t want any part of it.” I shake my head, “It’s trouble, all the way around.” 

“You don’t have to go along,” Ace gives me a look. “It’s not like you can do much with your powers acting the way they are.” 

Ramiel coughs, “I don’t have any either, so don’t feel bad.” 

“Then why are you here?” 

There’s a look he gives me that’s not quite at me, but at Terra, and I have to keep myself from doubling over laughing. In it for the girl, huh?

At least he’s in it for something. Why am I even here? It’s not like my powers are working anymore, other than the whole being faster than usual thing, and it’s not like I can stop Ace or Lapis once they set their mind to something. Hell, I’d even helped them find it, earlier!

But Ace and Lapis had seemed confident, in control, actually almost competent...

My lip catches between my teeth. I’m no good here. I was only kidding myself thinking I’d mattered against the Brock, anyway. I’m...a fluke. I’m...

I’m just a useless voice on a tidal wave of teen-hormone fueled heroic visions.


	6. Holding Out for a Hero

“So how did you find out about this Rocket base in Cerulean?” Lapis asks Terra, whose features are still set in a simmering glower. She blinks, as though she’s surprised she’s been addressed, and then her face becomes calmer as she considers how to answer Lapis in a furtive manner—at least, that’s what it looks like since she’s looking back and forth to see if anyone might eavesdrop. 

“Well, ever since the Rockets messed up my cousin,” Terra says, “I’ve been digging into them. I met a contact who’s like, a double agent for the cops, and I convinced him to let me help, because of my powers, and all.” She gets a little quieter with every word, eyes still darting to strangers. Lapis and Ace lean in closer, and I find myself doing the same. Terra’s too short to grip the overhead hand grips, but she holds onto one of the metal poles instead. Her knuckles tighten to pale white as she continues speaking, “He’s the one who told me about the mining operation in the rail station. Everything they find there is going to an operation in Cerulean.” 

“What are they digging for?” Ace scratches his chin, eyes focused on a thought far away. His gears are so obviously turning that it’s a wonder he even hears Terra reply. 

“Not sure. My contact isn’t high enough ranked in the gang to have access to the why. He just knows that the Rocket boss is really after something there. I hope that we can find out more of what’s going on in Cerulean.”

“I’m not going with you.” 

My words leave shocked expressions on Ace and Lapis, although it’s hardly surprising, in my opinion, given how much I bitch when they so much as breathe in a heroic-wannabe way. I watch the blur of tunnel outside the rail and wait for them to protest, to insist, but nothing comes. 

“That’s fair, Sydney,” Ace finally says. “We’ll catch up with you later.” 

Relief doesn’t flood my bones. Something about the way he says it makes me more nervous—I’m going to worry about these guys, even if they’ve got some new backup in the form of Little Miss Earthquake. Everything gets quiet again. I look between everyone and my eyes finally settle on Ramiel. He’s like me, in a way. Just sort of along for the ride on the heroic antics of a friend. 

Ramiel looks at me and offers a shy smile. “If you don’t mind—I didn’t catch your name?” 

“Sydney,” I say. He almost looks like he wants to shake my hand, but he just nods instead. 

“Sydney, right. I was wondering, since you’re not going along, could I tag along with you for a while? Just until we meet back up with the others after they’re done?” 

“I don’t see why not.” I wasn’t originally planning on staying in the Cerulean District for however long it took everyone to get done with their adventure, but the thought of waiting around somewhere until I knew they were safe settles my churning stomach. “We could go to the Nugget Bridge as our place to meet back up after everything.” 

Ace smiles at me. “Thanks, Sydney.” 

Lapis beams, too, and gives my arm a little squeeze. It hurts when she does it, but the gesture is nice enough that I just smile back as best I can. 

“So, what do you all do?” Terra asks. 

“Students—“ I start to say, but she shakes her head. 

“No, no, like, what are your powers?” 

Ace takes up explaining after that, and I focus back on watching the rail blister through the tunnels. It’s not long before we arrive at the Cerulean station. 

Terra, Ace, and Lapis split off from Ramiel and me as we climb up the stairs to the exit and step out into the Cerulean District. It’s a beautiful lakefront space—lacking the impressive noise and action of the docks in Vermilion, but beautiful and serene—and not the kind of place anyone would think a crime syndicate might take up residence. Cerulean’s known for being a hot date spot and a place where rich people keep lake houses by the boardwalk.

But the boardwalk is where I’m going. There’s a restaurant there, a special place, a place only Guy Fieri could dream of when he created Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives…

The Nugget Bridge. 

It’s a unique little fried chicken joint on the end of the boardwalk, a haven of buttermilk and beer battered goodness, a bastion of cardiac arrest in this new era of organic food befuckery. Ramiel follows me as we make our way down the pretty, pale-bricked streets to the boardwalk. 

“So how did you meet Terra?” I ask, shoving my hands in my sweatshirt pocket to try to keep them away from the chill. 

Ramiel shrugs, “We were in the same group project in psychology. Just really got along, you know?” 

How much of it was getting along, and how much of it was an unbridled crush brought on by a height difference? I grin at him and say, “So does she know how well you get along?” 

Color floods his cheeks, making his skin a shade redder than his carrot-top hair. “H-hey, we’re not at that stage of acquaintanceship, Sydney.” I laugh at him, and the tension in his shoulders loosens, and he gives me a nervous laugh of his own in exchange. “I-I mean, is it that obvious? That I like her, I mean?” 

“I’m just a good reader,” I shrug. “I mean, no offense, but I don’t like anyone enough to run into a gang operation because they’re taking too long.” 

He just blushes harder and ducks his head. The conversation lulls as we focus on staying warm and getting to the Nugget Bridge. 

The wind coming off the lake is cold—freezing and cutting me to the bone, cold is putting it mildly–and as we reach the stucco front of the Nugget Bridge we’re practically alone on the boardwalk. No one wants to deal with this kind of weather, me included. I hope Ramiel doesn’t notice that I’ve been standing slightly behind him to use his tall self as a windshield—a mediocre one, because he’s so scrawny—but if he has, he hasn’t said anything else. 

He opens the door for me and we head inside. It’s empty except for the young man at the register. The Bridge is a cute restaurant, with one wall dedicated to the Nugget Bridge Challenge – it requires eating two pounds of nuggets and a pound of fries and a milkshake in an hour. Winners get a t-shirt that says “I did my best, I have no regrets” – losers have to pay twenty bucks for the meal and deal with a stomach ache. How do I know? I definitely didn’t pay twenty bucks and have Daisy and Gary carry me home. Definitely not. That would be undignified. 

“Wanna split the challenge?” I ask as we head to the register. 

“That disqualifies you from a shirt,” The cashier says in a tired voice.

“I know. I’m just hungry.” 

Ramiel glances over the menu and nods, “Sure, we can split it.” 

“Can we make that two soft drinks instead of a milkshake?” 

The cashier types everything in the register and Ramiel and I fork over ten dollars apiece—and some change, for tax—and then we take our number and sit at a booth. It’s almost an uncomfortable silence that makes up the Nugget Bridge at this time of the day. There’s barely even music playing over the radio in the restaurant and Ramiel and I don’t have much to say. 

It makes the moment when the door to the manager’s office shatters open and a beautiful redheaded girl runs out, screaming, “HELP ME!” all the more horrifying, really. 

 

I really wish she hadn’t made direct eye contact with me as she said it, because she’s really my type, and I feel bad, and that means I have to be nice, and that means that I have to figure out why she’s screaming, and oh Good™, she’s headed right towards our table. 

“P-please,” She slams her hands on the table and it rattles–more like shakes like an earthquake from how hard she hits it–and Ramiel and I are both forced to look at her dead on. He’s flinching and I can feel that I am, too, flinching so hard that the smile I put on my face is obviously plastered on, half-panicked. 

The redhead is tall, with a really graceful kind of body that’s obvious even through the baggy jacket she’s wearing over her black sweatpants and t-shirt. Her face is cut sharp and angular, and her eyes look like the water out on the Vermilion Bay, blue and green all at once. The look in them is arresting; terrified and desperate and screaming for help louder than she’d been screaming only seconds ago.

“Kenna, dear,” Another woman says, her voice a low purr, “Why did you have to go involve some poor strangers in your affairs?” 

“Call the police, or scream, just, anything, please, p-please–” She takes my hand and a spark flies between us–my powers! NOW they choose to come back?–making her jump. “Wh…” Kenna(?) looks startled at our instant spark (I know, I am, too) and turns her head back to the manager’s door. 

Kenna’s hair is like fire. It’s a bunch of different shades of brown and red and blonde all combined to be one wild mass of waves flying all around her. 

The woman standing at the door with a gun in her hand has hair that’s like, crayon red by contrast. It’s beautifully, if obviously dyed, and for some reason that’s what my brain is focusing on instead of the gleaming piece of gunmetal grasped in perfectly manicured fingers. Lowering her glasses, the woman smiles at us and takes aim at Kenna. 

“No!” I hear my voice cry out before my brain can catch up and tell it that it’s a bad idea. 

The gun hesitates and my mouth keeps going. 

“W-we don’t want any trouble, uh, miss, so, like, maybe we can just all eat some chicken nuggets and get along, and we can put the gun down and no one gets hurt?” 

Gun-lady looks like a supermodel as she smiles at me and laughs. “You seem like nice kids. I’m sure you must feel awful that you’ve gone and gotten them into your mess, Kenna.” 

What the HELL is going on? All I wanted to do was eat chicken nuggets, and now I’m suddenly in the middle of some kind of intense drama between redheads and a gun is involved and oh God, why can’t anything just be okay for once, why can’t anything be NORMAL? Why is my life falling apart??? 

“If you know what’s good for you, sweetheart, you’ll come right over here into my office.” Gun-lady keeps smiling at us and motions with her gun. 

Kenna screams, an angry, violent sound, and slings her hand at the lady and fire explodes from her fingertips in a straight lance of heat I can feel warming my face so intensely that it’s like standing in front of a real bonfire. 

The woman doesn’t move. She waves her hand and water meets the fire halfway, drowning it out as instantly as it came and then some. The column of water pushes past and douses Kenna, hitting her with enough force to knock her into the table and onto the ground. Ramiel gets up and scrambles to kneel at her side. 

I’m frozen.

“Now really, dears, don’t make a scene in my restaurant. Come here.” 

I don’t want to move, unless it’s running–I don’t want any part in any of this, I wasn’t looking for trouble, I went looking in the opposite space for trouble, damn it–but the water forms into long picks of ice that point at Ramiel, Kenna and me, wicked sharp.

The woman’s office is larger than I anticipated. It’s not what I’d expect from a mafia higher-up, definitely more feminine and elegant, but it’s large and spacious enough for all three of us to sit in front of her desk with barely masked terror on all three of our faces. 

The woman sits on the desk, brushing down her pencil skirt and whisking away the icicles that had been bearing down on us as though they’d just become an inconvenience to her. She’s even more beautiful up close, one of those mouth-dryingly attractive types. My eyes dart away from her to the door that must lead to the kitchen behind her desk. There’s the door behind us that would be even more ideal for our escape, since it’s close to the door, but how? 

Could I shock this woman hard enough to incapacitate her? We could run, hide out, pray that she doesn’t have the ability to stalk us and kill us? My heart is beating so hard that it’s in my mouth, jumping rope with my tongue that might as well be dried out to Sahara levels. 

“Call me Lorelei,” She says, looking down at us with that never-wavering smile. “I’m sure the two of you are very confused, but we’ll get into more details once my associates bring me Kenna’s...medicine.” 

As if on cue, the door to the kitchen opens, bringing with it the smell of my never-to-be-eaten nuggets, and a man in all black with an ‘R’ emblazoned on his chest sweeps into the room, dropping a briefcase on Lorelei’s desk. She inclines her head at him and points to the door behind us. He nods in exchange and disappears behind us. I can’t take my eyes off Lorelei. What is she going to do to us? 

“How familiar are you all with the superhero Mythic?” 

I feel my head swivel into a slow nod on its own, without my consent. I don’t want to acknowledge anything she says, but it’s like my eyes are glued to her, to every movement she makes. All because of that shiny, shiny gun in her hand. She sits it on the desk and opens the briefcase. 

“I’m not very interested in them, myself,” Lorelei drawls as she removes a long syringe with some kind of wonderfully pale, no-doubt applied phlebotinum and paces around it. I follow her with the slightest turn of my head as she takes the syringe and jams it right into Kenna’s neck. “But there are elements of their abilities that are too valuable to ignore.” 

Kenna collapses in a heap. No convulsions, nothing but a dead drop. She’s still breathing, but it’s faint. 

“Rocket has been recreating Mythic, with...varying results. Kenna is one of my most powerful. I’ll be curious to see what happens when we introduce the serum to you two, though. Both so skinny.” 

As much as I hate their heroic antics, I would give everything I owned if only for Ace and Lapis to burst in with a big-damn-heroes moment right now. My stomach twists into a knot as Lorelei takes another syringe of the pale liquid from the briefcase and gives the needle one of those theatrical tests. I hate needles. I hate them so much I can’t even think straight, and she’s walking right towards us, and I have to do something--

I don’t remember moving, but one moment, I’m frozen to a chair, and the next, I’m making a mad dash for the gun Lorelei’s abandoned on her desk. She reacts with superhuman speed herself, though, because I know I’m moving too fast for a normal person to catch me like she does--the floor becomes ice under my feet and I slip, slamming my entire body into the wooden desk. It’s so heavy that it barely rattles from the impact of my weight. 

“Color me surprised; you’re feistier than I expected.”

Groaning in response, I roll back onto my hands and knees, only to find a syringe pointed at my neck. I slap at her hand and a spark flies between us. 

Lorelei’s impressively arched eyebrows arch harder, “Oh my. You’re talented, already.” 

“Is that what they’re calling it these days? Talent?” I wheeze.

“How unique,” Lorelei purrs.

“Sydney, you do have powers,” Ramiel gasps. 

“No shit. Why did you have to say my name?” I get up, shakily, but Lorelei is on the offensive and in a second I’m surrounded by icicles. 

She motions to the chair, “Sit. You and I have a lot to learn from each other in the future, I think, Sydney.” I have no choice but to obey her and I sit, still trying to think, still trying to figure out how the Hell I’m getting out of this without dying or worse. The last thing I want is to be some cliche science experiment for the fucking mafia!

The woman doesn’t hesitate as she takes the syringe intended for me and jams it right into Ramiel’s neck. He makes a “grrk” sound and collapses. 

Lorelei hums and folds her arms. “I didn’t think there were more like Mythic, but it shouldn’t surprise me.”

“Well, be prepared to be surprised!” 

Ace’s voice is a godsend as the man blocking the door to the manager’s office goes flying into a heap against the wall as a massive gust of wind knocks the door down. Lorelei reacts with that same insane speed, and ice goes flying from her fingertips. I hear a yelp of surprise, but Lapis and Terra are at mine and Ramiel’s sides immediately.

“You found us,” I sigh in relief as Lapis gives me a crushing side hug. 

Terra looks apologetic, “My contact got fed bad information. It looks like you found the real Rocket operation.” Her hands tighten on Ramiel’s shoulders as he doesn’t come to at her touch. 

Of course I did. 

I nod shakily and start to get up, but Lorelei’s pleasant expression melts for a split second as she points at me. “Sit.” 

Ace comes flying at her, though, and I stay standing as he whips her legs out from under her. Ace is able to knock her over the desk in the surprise. He’s panting, and there’s a little blood dripping from his arm where the icicles made impact through his jacket. I have never felt more relieved at seeing my wannabe hero friends than I have in this moment. They’re actually going to be able to help us get away, we can actually just run, yes, thank God, YES–

An icicle comes flying back and narrowly misses Ace’s face. It carves a path between Lapis and me and impales itself in the wall. In the moment we turn to look at it, Lorelei is back up and with the gun in her hand, pointing it between all of us like she’s playing eenie-meenie-miney-mo with who gets their head blown off. Her perfect hair is a little out of sorts, and she adjusts her glasses and forces her smile back into place. 

“So many of you! This is exciting. My boss will be thrilled by the news.” 

“Your boss is never hearing of it.” Ace warns her. “We’re taking our friends and going.” 

“And her,” I point at Kenna. “Whatever fucked up shit you’re doing, it’s done.” 

“Hardly.” Lorelei flicks her hand and ice forms around all of us again, sharp and ultimately checkmate. My heart starts beating fast again. She’s got a gun and she’s got powers. She’s also far more experienced than any of us with them, if how she’s played her cards so far works out. We’re totally screwed. “You’re all going to sit still until my organization comes to collect you.” 

“No,” Ace warns. 

“It’s not negotiable.” Lorelei’s smile is so fake that it looks plastic as she points the gun at Ace. “You see, dears, that I am Lorelei of the Rocket organization, and you are all my Christmas bonus.” 

“What has Rocket so interested in people like us, anyway?” I ask, hoping that if I run my stupid mouth maybe I can buy us a moment to escape. 

She glances at me and the gun joins her eyes in focusing on me. “Well, perhaps if you’re cooperative, we would be able to offer you money in exchange for your services.”

“Sure,” I babble, “Say we’re cooperative.” 

“Sydney...” Lapis’s tone is surprised, but I elbow her. 

“Say we’re cooperative,” I say again, “What would they do for us?” 

Lorelei lowers the gun and has a seat at her desk. “We could offer a lot for you. Money, security, whatever you wanted, really. Are you...trying to play me for a fool?” 

“No, no,” I shake my head viciously. Yes, yes, but keep talking, keep going– “I don’t want to die, and if there’s a happy medium, I’d be cooperative, you know? I’m just a dumb college student, miss, it’s the last thing I want is to like, get involved in stuff like this.” 

She hums contemplatively and arches an eyebrow. “I suppose I could offer you all an opportunity to join us without the fuss.” 

Yes. Just keep babbling, keep going, please let everyone be smart enough to follow along– 

“So, yes, join me, and I won’t blow out your brains or worse.” Lorelei beams. “It’s much easier when they’re like you, Sydney.” 

“Never,” Ace hisses. 

“Ace,” I snap, “Don’t be stupid.” 

“No, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Sydney, but we’ll fight our way out before we bow to you, Rocket scum–” 

Lorelei arches an eyebrow. There’s a moment where her plastic smile fades and the real bitch face that’s hiding behind it shows, but it’s replaced just as quickly by the ultimate Barbie facade. “Suit yourself.” 

She pulls the trigger and shoots Ace right in the head. 

Lapis screams in agony, Terra cries out, and I freeze and the world shuts down for a long moment as he falls. 

Ace is dead. He’s dead because he had to come rescue me. He’s dead because he’s an idiot, but he’s an idiot I considered a friend, and he’s dead. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, and he’s not getting back up, and what’s Lapis going to do, and it’s this bitch’s fault that he’s dead because she’s a psychopath and we were never supposed to get involved with hero stuff, because this is exactly what happens, but, but–but something boils ugly and hot and deep in my stomach as I straighten up. 

Lorelei points her gun at me, next. “Did you change your mind, Sydney?” 

“Shut the fuck up.” I whisper, “You didn’t have to kill him.” 

“No, but it did save me a lot of trouble.” 

Lapis’s choked sob as she scurries to hold his limp body sets me off. 

“You’re a psychopath.” I point my finger at her and wish that something would happen, that I had more than annoying little shocks for superpowers, that I was a badass like Mythic was supposed to be, and fuck Mythic, anyway, because if they were around and doing their job as a superhero we would never have been in this mess, anyway, and fuck everything and everyone and God, why does my body hurt, why does everything feel so–

An honest to god bolt of lightning arcs from my fingers to the gun in Lorelei’s hand and it goes flying out of her grip as she screams and clutches at her wrist. 

I stare at my hand in surprise and then laugh, “Run, guys–get out of here.”

Lorelei slings ice and water at me in a deluge and I dart out of the way, too fast for words. Every moment where I couldn’t control my powers suddenly seems far away, as if in this moment, fueled by my anger, fueled by Ace’s death, I’m in complete control. I sling another bolt of lightning–I don’t know how it works or how it’s working, now, but I throw it and watch Lorelei do everything in her power to duck out of the way and not eat however many fucktons of voltage in the face. We trade blows for several minutes, darting around the room. 

I catch her with a bolt in the shoulder and she screams, high-pitched and surprised as her arm goes limp and useless. I take aim and fire, but someone shoves me out of the way. 

“No–it’s not worth it.” 

The masked stranger is standing in the room with a grenade held in their hand.

“Killing isn’t the answer.” 

I’ll deal with the fact that I was ready to blow her head off later. My indignance is replaced with fear as they drop the grenade. 

Only smoke flies out from it instead of fire. 

A firm hand grasps my arm and everything becomes a whirlwind until suddenly I’m in an alleyway with Lapis cradling a dead Ace, Terra holding a groggy Ramiel, and Kenna, looking surprised at her newfound freedom. 

The masked stranger shakes their head. “I warned you all not to get involved.” 

Lapis’s sob is the only response.


	7. Training From Hell

I don’t go to Ace’s funeral. 

It’s not a place for me, anyway. It’s a place for a heartbroken Lapis, a confused and devastated family, not…not someone like me. It’s my fault he’s dead. It’s my fault. Me and my stupid mouth and I.

I didn’t even know the guy that well, but somehow that makes it worse. He was just a stupid kid. A stupid kid who had big, stupid dreams and died for nothing. Nothing but my own idiocy in thinking I could talk my way out of a problem.

Terrible is a mild way for describing how I feel. Everything is blurry and I’m hot and cold and dizzy. I think I’ve thrown up more times in the past couple of days than I ever have, even as a kid with stomach flu. 

I fall asleep with my head on the toilet again, maybe for the second time ever without involving alcohol. A drink sounds good. I dream of blood-red daiquiris and Lapis’s scream of pain and horror, of the masked stranger telling me in a familiar voice ‘I told you not to get involved’. 

When I wake up, a too-warm hand is on my back. 

“Sydney.” For a moment, I look up, and I see Gary frowning over me with concern, but as I blink myself awake, the brown hair changes to fire and his eyes become impossibly beautiful. Kenna.

“Need to use the bathroom? Sorry.” I stumble to my feet. Kenna had helped me home. She’s been crashing on the couch since it happened. I don’t think she has anywhere else to go, but I can’t complain. I think it’s better that I’m not alone right now. 

Her lips quirk, but she shakes her head. “Checking on you.” 

“Oh,” I say. I sound stupid. I am stupid.

We fall into an awkward silence. It’s hard not to stare at her; she commands attention, and with her focus on me, I can’t help but notice how disgusting I am. I scratch my ratty hair and, with an uncomfortable laugh, point to the shower.

“If you don’t mind, I think I could use a shower right now.”

Kenna nods and heads out the door, pausing in a way that reveals a stunning profile as she tilts her head back my way. “We should talk, once you’re done cleaning up.” 

The water is so hot it’s almost scalding as I step into the shower. I don’t mind the temperature; in fact, it’s cathartic to let the steam soak up some of my depressed funk. I take too long. Staring into space. Forgetting why I’m even there. I barely register when I put shampoo in my hair or when I scrub with body wash. It’s mechanical and welcome, something I don’t have to think about, something that I can get lost in watching and doing. Lather, rinse, repeat... 

The water turns cold.

Fuck.

How does anyone fuck up that badly? 

I get out of the shower, dry off, change into clean clothes (I admit, I hadn’t changed out of my sweatshirt and jeans, even bloodied as they were) and walk into the living room. Kenna is lounging on the couch, long legs kicked up over the armrest. 

“It’s not your fault,” She says without preamble, “What happened.” 

I blink. Of course it is. “Of course it is.” 

“She’s a monster.” Kenna’s eyes meet mine with a crystal clear intensity, hateful, purposeful. Fire. “She’s done worse. It was out of your control.” 

“I could’ve done more...something?” 

She snorts, “That’s stupid. You’re so clumsy with your powers. What makes you think you can actually take on someone like her and win? You got lucky you got as far as you did. That weirdo showing up when they did saved you from getting your head blown off.” 

Right. The second time, too. Who were they, anyway? But--ugh--no, that doesn’t matter, what matters is that she’s wrong. 

“I almost blew her face off,” I argue. I did, too! “If they hadn’t pulled my hand, I totally would’ve killed her.” 

And I don’t feel a shred of guilt about it. She deserves worse than what I could do to her.

Kenna tosses her head. “You think I haven’t tried a million times? I’m stronger than you, and I couldn’t do anything.”

“We’re both just fucking worthless, then, is that what you’re getting at?” 

If I’ve slapped Kenna with my words, she doesn’t show it. If anything, her chin raises at me in defiance of what I’ve said. 

“We are now,” She says, voice cool, eyes burning, “But we don’t have to be.” 

“What does that even mean?” There’s a low growl in my voice, from anger I barely knew was there, from emotion that had been dulled and numbed by shock—hah, shock.

She smiles, “We can get stronger.” 

I laugh. It’s a short bark, quick and harsh. “Oh, yeah, Pippi-Flame-Stockings and Sparky Sparky Boom Girl, making waves and taking names. Totally doable.” 

“You just have to want it.” Kenna ignores my jab and steps forward, eyes never leaving mine. They’re practically glowing, they’re so bright. “Don’t you want to make her pay, Sydney?” 

My mouth dries up. The ringing in my ears from residual gunshot resumes. Lapis’s scream, muffled from said ringing. The blood. The confusion. Lorelei, implacably icy, the gleam of an anime villain in her sexy librarian glasses. 

What do I want?

“Sure.” I manage. It feels almost right. Sounds right. It’s what she wants to hear. Is it what I want?

I don’t know. 

“Then here’s the plan.” Kenna puts her hands on my shoulders and looks straight down at me. “I need you to focus. We’re going to need to find the blue-haired girl. And those other two. We’ll need as many hands as we can get. And then, we’re going to work together, and get stronger. And when we’re strong enough, we’re going to find Lorelei.”

“I doubt she’ll be back at the Bridge,” I say. 

“No, she won’t be,” Kenna steps back and puts her hand on her chin. “But I know how we can find her. The Celadon District Casino is a Rocket front.”

“How do you know that?” 

“That’s where they kidnapped me.” Kenna shrugs. “Hell of a birthday party.” 

I bite my lip. “Oh.” Then I suck in a breath through my teeth and let the thoughts roll in my head. Shake down the casino? That sounds borderline criminal. Sounds dangerous. What if we get killed, too? Why did I agree without thinking this through? 

“The manager of the casino is a higher up. Her name is Ericka. We’ll talk to her, and she’ll tell us where Lorelei is.”

“Like it’s that easy.”

Kenna’s smile is feral. “It will be, when we’re strong enough.” 

My gut twists. 

Even with Kenna’s hype-man attempts and murderous intent, I can’t bring myself to seek Lapis out until two days later. 

When I knock on the door to their apartment, she cracks it open. Her eyes are red from crying. 

“Oh. Sydney.” She sounds like how flat Coke tastes. “You missed the service.” 

“Sorry. I didn’t feel like I had any right. Can we come in?” I motion to Kenna, but my head drops. 

There’s a sniffle, a nod that I can only perceive by the shadow moving across her face, and the door swings open. 

But instead of letting me inside, Lapis crushes me in a rib-cracking hug and starts sobbing into my sweatshirt. 

“We need to talk to you.” I gently pry her off with a pat on her blue hair, take her hand, and lead her to the kitchen chair. I sit her down in it and walk to the other side of the table. Kenna follows, silent, graceful, unwelcome.

“W-what about?” Lapis asks, hiccupping all the while. 

I chew on my lip, eyes falling to my hands clasped in front of me so tightly that my knuckles are threatening to shatter my skin like a whole mass of chest bursting aliens. “We want to avenge Ace.” 

She says nothing. 

“It’s only right that we ask you. We need you. You’re the strongest.” 

Lapis’s head drops. Big, fat tears stream down her cheeks, and a low whine audibly crawls up her throat before her shoulders shake in a shuddery sob. 

“…okay.” 

She manages to look at me, finally. There’s something, a spark, alight in her expression. “Okay, Sydney. For him, I’ll help you guys...” 

My hands relax. That…was easy. “Okay. We need to find Terra and Ramiel, too.” 

Lapis nods at me. “I have Terra’s number.”

“You do?”

“She came to check on me yesterday.” 

We rendezvous with Terra at McDonald’s. With her is a guy in a blue baseball cap who is absolutely jacked, sitting quietly with his head down. 

She offers me a box of chicken nuggets as we slide into the hard plastic booth. 

“What’s up?” 

I’m in the middle of eating a nugget, so I talk around my food, “Well…uh…who’s this?” 

He tips back his hat and my jaw slackens. Eyes wide, I point at him and ask, “Ramiel?” 

“Yeah.” His voice is the same, but he’s totally different. There’s this movie, part of the superhero saga based on some really popular comics—Captain Unova, right—and that’s the kind of transformation I’ve witnessed in front of me. Ramiel is no longer a scrawny, scraggly redhead. He’s absolutely a beefcake. Like. Hot damn. When he smiles, there are dimples, even—fucking dimples! How are people like me supposed to compete in a world of beefcake!Ramiels and Kennas? 

“Wh—what happened to you?” 

His expression is conflicted—a flash of smug satisfaction in his smile, a hint of confusion and anger in his eyes—before he manages to say, “Well…whatever they put in my system did this to me. I’m…”

Terra beams, “He’s amazing—he’s possibly got more super strength than Lapis, and—tell them what you did to your shower?” 

“Oh.” Ramiel shifts at the praise, color crawling up his cheeks, a neon sign of his affection for Terra. “I wanted the water pressure to be higher, and when I thought about it enough, it happened. It’s like…”

“Water psionics or something!” Terra is almost inappropriately excited. 

“Are you okay?” Lapis asks. Why didn’t I think to ask that? That’s the emotionally sensitive thing to do…

His jaw sets, revealing that flash of perfect dimple again, and he nods. “I’ll be fine. So, back to why you called us…” 

Lapis glances at me and I glance to Kenna, whose eyes are burning hotter than I’ve ever seen them. Did Ramiel’s plight trigger something in her? Probably. I mean, they probably went through something similar, right? Right. 

She’s not saying anything, and Lapis’s expression tells me more than words that she’s not talking, either. Why does this shit always fall to me? 

“Right. We…we’re going after the Rockets. But we need to work together.” 

Terra chews a french fry slowly, jaw working in deliberate motion with her mind. I can see the gears turning behind her dark eyes. “Okay. How do you propose we do that?” 

“Uh…” 

Kenna speaks up, finally. “You’re familiar with Mulan, aren’t you?” 

I can practically hear the drums to that damned montage song playing in my head.   
\--

The first two weeks are hell. Every morning, at six on the dot, Kenna strides into my room, flips me out of bed--literally--and tells me to put on my running shoes. 

I hate her for this. 

I hate her perfect running form, smoothly gliding down the road. She’s not super fast like me, but she never seems to tire, never seems to run out of steam. I can zip down the roads for a few minutes, but invariably, inevitably, I run out of breath. And, inevitably, invariably, she makes some cryptic Mr. Miyagi bullshit comment and keeps on pushing me to run more consistently. 

I hate her for what comes next. Sweating, panting, dying, we climb to the rooftop of the apartment complex to spar as the sun rises over the skyline of Kanto City. Fire catches in her hair as the light touches strands of gold and deep red. I frantically zap at her, and she ducks and weaves out of the way and knocks my lights out. I’m only able to sit dazed for a few seconds before she strikes again, so fast that it makes me look slow.

Every day, it’s the same. Sweat, fall, scramble. Sweat, fall, scramble. I blink stinging drops of perspiration from my eyes and eat a smack on my jaw.

She’s holding back.

I hate her on behalf of the other three, too. After I pick at a breakfast my stomach hurts too much to eat, she drags me to meet with Lapis, Terra and Ramiel at the park. We practice our powers. Ramiel and Terra make easy work of me, Lapis too, even if she really goes easy on me. Kenna stands against a tree, arms folded, frowning at me as I fall again, and again, and again.

I hate her.

My body hurts so much by week three that I’m already awake and putting on my shoes when she comes to wake me up. I don’t speed past her anymore, zipping block by block to wait for her Terminator steady movement. I jog behind her, eyes downcast, focusing on my feet so I don’t fall flat on my face. 

As we spar, I duck and weave, now, avoiding all her tricks as best I can, getting smacked still and left stinging, sprawled flat on the ground. I barely make it down the stairs to the park. 

I can’t keep up with anyone as we make our second loop around the pond. Lapis looks back at me with sorrow in her eyes. 

Who was I kidding to think I could do this? 

I close my eyes every night and all I feel is the wear and tear in my muscle, what has to be microfracture in my bones. Even showering doesn’t help ease the pain. Who was I kidding to think I could take the Rockets on? I can hardly keep up with everyone, and they’re going easy on me. 

I put my hands on my face and exhale, shaky, exhausted. I can’t do this. I’m just going to get killed. 

My head spins at the thought. Gun to my head, blown away, gone, Lapis screaming, Gary and Daisy distraught--God, I haven’t even talked to them in weeks, what kind of friend am I--and then the spark ignites.

I get out of bed ten minutes before my alarm the next day, shoes already on. Kenna doesn’t get to open my door before I’m there. I know our running route, I’m done with it in minutes, waiting for Kenna to make her steady pace back. My chest doesn’t heave. It’s all about control. It’s all about the spark. I stare at my hands as I wait on the top step. The spark that made me this way. Daisy and Gary. My friends. What if the Rockets did something to them? How would I feel? What would I do? That’s how Lapis was feeling. I had to do this for her. She’s...my friend, too.

I’m so selfish, so stupid. Personal revenge is pointless, but this, I can manage. As Kenna climbs the final steps, I nod at her. Something in her expression ignites, and we spar, and it’s a dance, a fluid arrangement of motions to music neither of us can hear but that we know. We end in perfect sync, my hands sparking inches from her neck, her fingers blazing under my chin. I’m not breathing hard. I feel in control. She smiles. 

I don’t hate her at all. 

When the group gathers, I lead the pack in all our exercises, clobbering all three of my friends as I dart and dash and leap and tumble through all their combined powers.

I’m not strong. But I’m fast. I’m smart. I don’t have to brute force my way anywhere.

I have the spark. 

“I think it’s time,” Kenna announces as I’m in the shower. I hear her lean against the door, even through the screaming, steaming water. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I’ll call the others.” 

I don’t rush out of the shower, but once it’s done, I get dressed and find everyone waiting in the living room. We all look changed, not just Ramiel. Terra is all muscle, her eyes flashing dark and dangerous. Lapis has changed her hairstyle, girlish pigtails traded for a long braid down her back. I don’t look at myself much, but I can feel the twitch of honest to god muscle in my stomach, can see the line of strength in my legs even through my skinny jeans.

“So, who here’s good at counting cards?” I ask. 

Everyone laughs, and we head on our way.

The Celadon Casino is a big, glorious building in the verdantly green district. It stands out even from the gigantic shopping center. It’s a tourist trap, Celadon, but it’s pretty awesome, too. Daisy and I lost countless dollars to the shoe stores at the shopping center, and Gary, whether or not he would tell anyone, thought he was quite the card counter, so he’s lost plenty of money at the casino, too. We pretend we don’t know. 

But as we approach the Casino doors, something flags my senses, a tingle down my spine. I hold my hand up and everyone stops, as though I’ve somehow earned being the leader. 

And a man in a black suit goes flying out one of the broad, open windows, defenestrated in broad daylight. Glass catches the grey sunlight in a cascade around him as he rolls, slides and slumps to the ground. 

“Now, Erika,” It’s a woman’s voice, cool--not like, ice, but the kind of voice someone cool would have--and badass all at once, says, “You’re going to tell me how to get downstairs to your boss, or your bodyguard there won’t be the only one taking an express trip out the door.”


	8. Clark Kenting

Her hands glow with some kind of psionic energy, casting a pale blue light over the dim casino entryway. There are men in suits scattered across the ground, slumped over the bar, and one even inserted into a broken slot machine like the wrong coin. Did she do this? Just her? 

The woman sitting on the ground in front of her is clutching her arm in pain. 

But my eyes keep going back to those glowing blue hands. I follow the long fingers down to lithe, strong arms, attached to a figure that belongs more to a supermodel than a...vigilante? Her hair is so pale that it looks almost white in the light, pulled back high into a long, thin ponytail that wavers in the air conditioning like some dignified cape. 

We’d walked in expecting a fight. 

But whoever she is, she beat us to it, and then some. I suck in a breath as I look to Kenna, then Lapis, then Ramiel, then Terra. They’re all as confused as I am. So no one has a super powered friend that they’d neglected to mention. Cool. 

“You can sit and pout all you want, Erika, but unless you want me to start trashing your place even more, talking is the best option.” 

Erika, the black-haired woman, jerks her chin at glowy-hands and sneers, “And they said you were supposed to be a class act.” 

“Oh, are we trying to hurt the two feelings I have? Try harder, please, I haven’t had a good cry in a while.” 

“He’ll destroy you.”

Her hands stop glowing as she folds her arms. “Are you going to talk, or am I going to start bending wall panels in until I find the secret passageway?” 

Erika glances behind her and makes eye contact with me. Her eyes widen; glowy-hands must be looking her in the face, because she turns her head to the side, and--

My breath whistles between my teeth as it’s stolen away. 

Okay, Kenna’s pretty. Like, really pretty. Lapis is cute. Terra is...not my type, but she obviously checks some boxes for a guy like Ramiel...

But mystery guest is otherworldly. The kind of beautiful that checks everyone’s box. Her eyes are big, and where Kenna’s eyes have this sea-green complexity to them, this girl’s eyes are so sky blue that they’re nearly reflectionless. They’re that deep, framed in thick lashes that blink dubiously as they take us in. She has sort of an oval face, a feline structure to the shape of her eyes and nose, graceful and kind of wild. 

“Oh.” She runs her tongue over her white teeth and flashes us an awkward smile. “Sorry, kiddos, but the casino’s closed.” 

“I think we’re here for the same reason,” I blurt. 

This must strike her as hilarious, because she starts to laugh. It’s like music, a peal of perfect melody. “I’m sorry, but what?” 

Erika stands up, clutching at her shoulder. “I recognize the redhead...though, how did you manage to get away from us?” 

“Great, let me just add kidnapping to the list of things I’m giving to Koga,” Says glowy-hands-mc-perfect-face, “I’m sure he’s going to salivate when I hand him all of the Rocket organization on a silver platter.”

Who the hell is this chick? She sure is sure of herself. 

“You are very confident in yourself.” Erika glances at her. 

There’s a flick of her wrist and the psionic blue picks back up, lifting Erika into the air with as much effort as it would take me to lift a chicken nugget to my mouth. 

“Erika, please, I’m tired of your stalling. Tell me how to get to the lower level, or I’ll tear out the floor.” 

Erika’s expression is completely under control. Except for the little bead of sweat trailing down her temple, or the way her eyes don’t quite make it up from the floor. Or the fact that she’s shaking. 

In her shoes, I think I would be shaking, too. It’s not every day you get threatened by someone who’s more chipper than a barista on ten shots of espresso, more confident than a guy about to negg some chicks at a bar…

“The out of order machine.” Erika chokes, “Pull the lever. It opens the stairwell down to the complex.” 

“Was that so hard? Now you’ll just sit pretty for me while I go clean house.” She doesn’t drop Erika, but she dismisses her power with a flick of her wrist and a toss of her hair. She’s halfway to where Erika directed her when Kenna catches up.

“Wait.”

“I don’t have time for kiddies playing hero,” Glowy-hands says. “You guys go run along before you get hurt from running your little brain hamsters too hard.” 

“We’re not playing hero.” Kenna stares her down, and the room begins to boil. 

I close the distance and offer my hand, “Hey, uh, right, so, name’s Sydney, this is Kenna, you’ll have to forgive her, she’s a little intense, and that’s…” I go down the line of Lapis, Terra and Ramiel. She logs them each with a quick dart of her reflectionless eyes and then smiles at me. 

“Alright, nice to meet you. We’ll have time for autographs later, Syd.” Her fingers are cool to the touch as our hands meet in a firm shake. “It’s cute to see the youth of the city trying on the hero hat, but really, this is about to get dangerous, so if you guys wouldn’t mind going on down to McDonald’s for Happy Meals or something and getting out of my way—“ 

“We can help!” Lapis blurts. “What if there are a bunch of bad guys? Won’t you get overwhelmed?”

“Yeah,” Terra says, “We’re like you. Powers and all.” 

She arches an eyebrow, dark in contrast to her pale hair, “In case you guys didn’t notice, I’m kind of the big solo act around here.” She gestures to the scattered bodies of the knocked out Rocket grunts. 

I mean, I can agree, we’d probably be getting in her way. She’s way out of our league. I start to say so, but Ramiel speaks up next: 

“If we help each other get what we want, it’ll lighten the load for everyone. You look strong, but surely you can’t keep that up forever.” 

“I’m in my prime, big’un,” She puts her hands on her hips and stretches out, “But…” She makes eye contact with me and I feel a strange tug on my brain, a weird static and buzzing and pressure like the cable isn’t quite set right between my eyes anymore. 

[i]You don’t really want to be here, do you? [/i]

I jump. It’s her voice, but it’s not in my ears—it’s—I can process the words like I’m reading them, or like I’ve got headphones in, but I’m not [i]hearing[/i] her. I’m experiencing the words as a flash of color, emotion; curiosity, confusion, amusement. 

[i]Yeah, everyone has that reaction. Why are you here, Sydney?[/i]

I try to think of how to respond. Ace’s death flashes across my mind and she starts, arms going limp for a split second before she takes us all in anew. 

She saw that?

[i]Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yikes. Personal stake, eh? Though, curious as to why that Silph goon was there, too. I thought they were in with the Rockets.[/i]

Silph Goon? The masked stranger? What would that have to do with the big Silph Company? 

But, almost like she’s not having two conversations at once, she says to Ramiel, “I guess you’re right, big guy. Maybe we can help each other out. I hear the big Rocket boss is here today, so I’m paying him a visit. Doesn’t mean I can’t turn you guys loose on everyone else in there to keep busy…” She puts a hand on the lever of the out of order slot machine and pulls down on it. The building jiggles and the floor begins to unfurl, sinking deeper into a staircase between stainless steel walls. Woah. Now that’s cinema-tier-corny. 

She’s in my head, still, I think, because the television static doesn’t go away. Who is she? There’s something in her attitude, her confidence, how she talks to me that says I should know. She flashes me a very knowing smile. 

“You guys can call me Emma, by the way.”

We follow her down the stairs and into a room that branches off into a network of hallways. The light is sterile, bleak, nothing like the inviting dimness of the casino. Emma closes her eyes and the static moves from my brain. 

“Hard to sense anything down here. Let’s see…” She counts us like a kindergarten teacher counting students and nods. “Six of us. Three pairs--one for each hallway.” 

“Splitting the party is so moronic,” I say. 

“We’re not playing Dungeons and Nerdballs,” Emma rolls her eyes, “We need to cover more ground, and if you guys do have powers, you can wreak some havoc on what you find.” 

Kenna’s jaw sets as she looks down the hallways. “That is an agreeable compromise.” 

“You like wreaking havoc, don’t ya, hotshot?”

Terra says, “You said you’re after the Rocket boss. What if we find him?” 

Emma’s smile drops. “Run away. He’s very, very dangerous. You come find me, or you bring him to me.” 

“That’s comforting!” I say, my voice coming out a little high pitched.

“You’re the ones who insisted on tagging along.” She hones her eyes in on the middle hallway, “Now, come on, Syd, you’re going with me.” 

Kenna and Lapis take the right hallway. Lapis gives me a forlorn look as she turn the corner, but I try to give her an encouraging nod. Ramiel and Terra take the left. 

Why me? 

“So...” Emma takes an easy stroll down the hall, peeking into the occasional room we pass--all empty. 

“So.” My heart is beating faster by the footstep. Splitting up was not part of the plan. Coming down into the jaws of death was not part of the plan. Oh God, what if we all wind up like Ace?

“What year of school are you in? What do you study?” 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

Emma tilts her head to the side, “Sydney, Sydney, me? A stranger you barely know? Joke with you?” She grins and puts her arm around my shoulder. “You need to relax. You’re a ticking time bomb with all that tension. Just talk to me.” 

“Get off,” I shove her arm off of me. After a minute of chewing my lip, I finally say, “I’m graduating next year. Journalism.” 

“Very nice. Was that so tough?” 

“Who are you?”

She grins at me, a perfect smile preceding a non-answer. “See, Syd, this is why you’re my favorite. You’ve got two brain cells to rub together. Thinking the right questions.” Emma taps my temple.

“That doesn’t answer the question.” 

“I said you could call me Emma.” 

My jaw sets. “Alright, well, Emma, what’s your beef with the Rockets?” 

“What’s yours?”

“You saw what it was.”

Her expression darkens for a moment. “My beef is to keep that from happening anymore, Syd. It was never supposed to happen.” 

“Well, it did.”

“What was his name?” She opens another door. No one’s here. 

I swallow the lump that forms in my throat. “Ace.” 

“How did you get tangled up in all of this, anyway, then? People don’t just get super powers, really.” 

“What do you call what you do?” 

“An exception to the rules.” She winks. 

I fill the silence with a shakedown of how it all happened, how we’ve managed to get here, about Kenna and Ramiel and Lorelei. 

When I mention the serum, she stops moving. 

“They’re doing [i]what?[/i]” 

“Making people have superpowers with some bad sci-fi mojo,” I say. 

There’s a deep anger that flashes over her, drawing her brow low and dangerous as her eyes narrow. She’s expressive. Doesn’t try to hide the things that go across her face. It’s uncomfortable to witness, and for a moment, I feel it, too, a low burn in my chest that dissipates as she shakes her head.

“Sorry,” She begins.

“You made me feel what you were feeling,” My hand hovers over my sternum, where the fire had been most intense. “Seriously, that’s like, beyond weird. Who are you?”

“Sydney, Syd, Syyyyyd,” Emma grins, “Haven’t you figured it out by now?”

I stare at her. Emma must think on a different wavelength than normal people, with the way she talks so fast, because her stupid grin falters for a second before flashing brighter than ever as we open another set of doors. No one again.

“But I suppose if my Clark Kenting’s that good…” She trails off and my brain starts moving at two hundred miles a minute. I’m supposed to know her. I feel like I should, too. The answer must be obvious, must be…

“Oh, lookie here!” She presses the button to a door that refuses to open. “Found my mark. Syd, be a good bud and wait here for me?”

It’s as she rips the door off its hinges with her brain that the answer walks through the door and out my mouth.

“Oh my God. You’re [i]Mythic[/i].”

Emma—Mythic—winks at me and steps into the office, and a man’s voice says, “And she is supposed to be dead.”

[i]The[/i] Mythic. Kanto City’s biggest hero, biggest vigilante crime fighter. They’re real. Not fake. And she’s a total babe. With real telekinetic powers. Even though she told me to stay outside the office, I find my feet taking me inside anyway.

The office we step into is luxurious. The hard, sterile tile floors are covered by a deep red rug that’s squishy under my tennis shoes. There’s a big desk covered with fancy statuettes and paperwork, and sitting in a heavy desk chair is a handsome, older man with short dark hair and olive skin. He’s wearing a perfectly tailored suit. His expression is coldly pleasant, fake. He’s smiling with teeth as Emma bows dramatically in front of him.

“Giovanni Moretti, if I had a dime for every time someone thought they’d killed me, I’d be out of student loan debt.”

He stands up and folds his arms behind his back, “I underestimated you. A mistake I shan’t make again. Tell your little friend to stand aside; my quarrel is not with a child playing pretend.”

“Oh, so I can sit at the grownups’ table now?” Emma motions with her hand for me to get back, and the telekinetic blue force surrounds her hands again. It matches her eyes.

Who the Hell is Giovanni Moretti? Obviously the Rocket boss, right, but what’s his damage? The name sounds familiar, too, but there’s no time to think. He must’ve skipped monologuing 101 in villain school; he lashes out with a hand and no further explanation, and one of the statuettes, shaped like a big serpent, flies off the desk and hurtles at Emma. She flicks her wrist and it goes wide, shattering against the wall.

“Oh, whatcha gonna do, try to squash me again?” She flexes her fingers and his entire desk lifts off the ground and flies into him, knocking aside potted plants as it careens backwards and slams into Giovanni, crushing him against the wall. Thaaaaat’s a spine breaker. I cringe.

Giovanni stands back up, dusting himself off, and says, “As ever, an impressive display of strength, my dear. But I am made of sterner stuff these days.”

“Would you go so far as to say you’re rock solid?” Emma smiles.

“You are flippant in order to hide a myriad of personality flaws. It would be charming, were you not constantly causing problems for me.”

Yeeeee-ikes. I feel like I’m watching some high-level comedy show. The back and forth is on point, but if what he’s said hurt Emma, she doesn’t show it. She keeps smiling, keeps glowing. Giovanni’s eyes move from her to the room, looking for an angle, a way out? The tension begins to weigh heavier and heavier in the air. Who’s going to make the first move? Maybe I should bail and leave this fight to the heavyweights…

The sequence of action happens so quickly that I almost miss it. There’s a series of bright, brilliant flashes, the room shakes, and then Giovanni is dusting himself off again.

Emma’s hands flicker out.

“Hm…feeling a little under the weather, Mythic?” Giovanni adjusts his cufflinks.

Her skin is fair enough that the blood oozing from her nose in a thin rivulet is starkly obvious. Emma puts a hand to her head, eyes downcast, wide.

Uh oh.

“While I couldn’t kill you the first time, I am glad to see that I put enough of a dent in you that you’re not up to peak capacity.”

She looks back up at him and frowns, “Gotta give it to you, Moretti, you really know how to show a girl a good time.” Blood continues its lazy trail down her face, dripping across full lips and a dimpled chin. Emma’s voice isn’t the same, like her heart’s not in the banter anymore. She glances at me and smiles.

It’s weird how sad it is.

“Syd—Sparky—I need you to do me a favor. Run along and get all your friends and scoot on out of here. I’m going to bring the house down.”

“No offense, [i]hotshot[/i] but you don’t look like you could bend a spoon right now.”

Something more genuine creeps into her smile. “I knew I liked you, kid. Get on, though, before you get hurt.”

She’s trying to sacrifice herself to the big bad like she’s gonna go all “You Shall Not Pass” and save the day. Martyrdom is like, not sexy. At all. And at the same time, too, a part of my brain starts arguing. Do what the superhero says, she probably knows best, says part of me.

The other part says letting someone else end up like Ace is unacceptable.

My feet shift on their own, unsure, unsteady. Run, or fight and die.

Run, or fight and probably get my skull crushed by the scary mob man?

An arc of lightning curls up my arm, raising all the hairs on my body as the smell of ozone flashes across my nose, dry and hot. Ace’s death blips over my eyes as I blink. Abrupt. Merciless.

This guy’s Lorelei’s boss, anyway.

Giovanni Moretti probably doesn’t anticipate getting blasted by a pretty respectable arc of electric energy. It crashes into his chest and sends him careening into – and through – the far wall of his office.

Woah. I look down at my hand and back up.

“Wow,” Emma stumbles back a step. “That was pretty good, kid.”

“Pretty good, indeed,” Giovanni says, staggering through the debris of the wall. “One of my admins reported a few new little problem children. She undersold your talent.” He raises a hand and the debris lifts around him. “It is a shame to be rid of potential research subjects, but…” With a flick of his wrist, the debris careens towards me and Emma. I push her out of the way and dart under the blow. Either he’s slow, or I’m really fast, or both – but now my heart is thundering in between my ears, every beat enough to make my head spin and my stomach lurch.

I just attacked a super powered mob boss. Oh, God. I’m an idiot.

He redirects the debris back towards me, and I run out of the way again and throw more lightning at him. This time, it catches him in the arm, and he winces, drops his focus for a moment, and then shakes it off.

He can just shake off lightning. That’s so cool! Said no one EVER. That’s SO FUCKED UP.

[i]Breathe, kid.[/i] Emma’s voice appears in my mind with the obnoxious television static feeling.

And then there’s a flash of images, a sequence of events – duck, roll, blast, run [i]along the wall[/i] and blast again, [i]backflip?[/i] Why the Hell would I backflip?

[i]Style points. I’m trying to help you, here.[/i]

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

[i]Just do it![/i]

The rocks and debris are back at it, and I have no choice. Following the weird future-image of me from Emma’s theatrical mind, I duck and roll under the first hurtling mass of mess, tossing more lightning as I come up. I don’t quite run on the wall, but I move fast, darting to the side of Giovanni to fire again and again. He reacts quickly, and I understand why she showed me the backflip. I leap into the air and feel my entire body lurch as I do something I have never even thought about doing.

I mean, what would Gary and Daisy think, seeing me, the laziest slug since Jabba the Hutt, do a sick backflip over a massive stone attack?

I even land on my feet, guided by the little mental nudges of how to balance my body weight midair from Emma. She’s dabbing at the blood on her face with her shirt, but I can’t miss her sly grin.

“A young talent,” Giovanni says, his dark eyes glancing me up and down. “I have entertained you both long enough. You came here to bring me to justice, Mythic, and you failed. So, if you would so kindly [i]die[/i]—“

A pipe rips from the floor and floods Giovanni in the face with water.

“Sydney, are you alright?” Ramiel and Terra run into the room, followed shortly by Kenna and Lapis.

“Yeah—nice—nice timing,” I pant. When had I started breathing so hard? Am I having a panic attack? Is that what those feel like? Hoo boy. My hands rest on my hips as I step back and try to breathe.

“We couldn’t find anyone. Everyone must’ve bailed out by now—“

Emma suddenly snaps her head up and blurts, “Oh my God, he’s moved them to another front. You just used yourself as bait, didn’t you, Moretti?”

“Brilliant as ever. When you shook down my quarry, I knew that I would need to make some changes. Of course, you’ll all be dying here, so I have no fear of you discovering where I have transplanted Rocket.”

Ramiel’s jaw sets and the water from the pipe intensifies into a blast worthy of something to fight fires. It knocks Giovanni off his feet. As the big guy steps forward, Terra puts a hand out.

“Wait, um, Ram—did you—do you feel that?”

Lapis’s eyes widen, “I think this place is gonna collapse. We—we should run! I—I don’t want to get crushed to death.”

Giovanni wheezes a laugh, “Good luck with that, little children.” As he stands up, he makes a grand gesture and the building truly starts to shake and groan. Giovanni walks to the back of the room and presses a button. An elevator—an honest to God elevator—slides open and he steps through it.

Emma lashes out and a wave of telekinetic energy slams into the door too little too late. She clutches her head as she does so and groans. “Fuuuuuuck.”

“We gotta get out of here,” I say, “Of course this guy has a contrived escape plan, but we need to backtrack and fast.”

Everyone nods and takes off. Emma tries to stand, and falls short.

I put my arm under hers and lift her up. She’s taller than me, so we’re bent at an awkward angle, and her body is all muscle, heavier than it looks. I grunt and start to drag her along.

“Sorry, Syd,” She grimaces, and blood streaks across her teeth, “I’m normally better than this.”

“What did he do to you?”

“Severe head trauma. I think normal people probably would’ve died. Just gave me some headaches…urgh…” Emma winces as we drag our way down the hall and up the stairs. It’s a slow slog, but everyone is waiting for us at the top and Ramiel lifts Emma effortlessly into his arms as we run out of the building. It’s definitely collapsing, looking like a dramatic television show season finale as we stagger into the street. Police sirens wail and we all glance around in horror.

“Ah, fuck, of course old Koga’s on my tail,” Emma says. “Alright, hold onto your hats, Teen Titans.”

The world lurches. Lurches is putting it mildly. It’s like Daisy’s driving—we go really, really fast and then the world stops under my feet, brakes slammed short of a red light.

And suddenly we’re in an apartment living room. I blink. It’s a nice place, kind of barren, except for a bunch of textbooks that stack on the coffee table next to crumpled Red Bulls and Monsters and headache medicine bottles.

“Who…are you?” Kenna frowns as she lifts herself up from where she’d stumbled. Lapis is sprawled on the ground, but Ramiel is standing, Terra gripping his waist. Emma is listless in his arms.

“She’s Mythic. [i]The[/i] Mythic.” I say.

Emma gives us a thumbs up and promptly passes out.


End file.
